Never fade

It's hard to put to words the experience I had wandering the woods of my campus' retreat last year, even as a writer. If the music sang to your veins as it does mine, Doppler's Hungarian Pastorale Fantaisie played while experiencing Calvino's best scenes of magic realism (internal contestation prevents me from naming a story or specific scene) would come very, very close.

Come to really think on it, I know the story. From Marcovaldo, when he explores the city hidden under snow, a paradise of white purity and beauty unmatched even by the simple delight of its unique adventure.


I stepped from Bjorklunden's warm lodge fully expecting to turn back within ten, perhaps fifteeen minutes. The snow rose past my knees even nearby the shoveled lodge paths. Camera in hand, I decided I didn't care. I simply wanted space, peace, a meeting with nature long overdue judgeing by the soreness of my soul. The path through the initial woods proved easy enough to manage--the snow-shoeing group must have traveled them earlier that morning, I could see their tracks, follow what had become packed down and thus wouldn't collapse under my every step.

Out of the old wood, where the path bends to meet the "cliffs" of the lakeshore, I thought of turning around. Clearly all the others had. The snow before me was completely undisturbed, and not just on the path itself. Snow clung to every branch as though newly fallen, dusted the trunks like flour dusts the edges of our lefse boards.

Bright autumn-orange leaves--still on the trees--were crusted with ice and snow, perfectly still. Like charms. I felt as though time had stopped, that by stepping from the old wood I had instead stepped into an inner realm, something boundless and untouched by any other than the huldre. I was captivated in an instant, my shutter clicking as fast as my eyes could move, could focus on the details of the leaves there, or twig-branches that strung themselves along the blanketed ground like the cords of tree lights, the delicate blue berries peeking up shyly from the snow. They were things that couldn't be seen unless looked for, the precious bits of the world that get trampled by worth-seeking souls. They were treasures, not unlike the mushroom curiously sprouting between the cracks of the sidewalk in Marcovaldo's city, unnoticed but somehow intact, beyond the force of gravity that placed every footfall of the crowded pedestrians.


I continued on through the new woods--the alf woods as I fondly refer to them now--for well over two hours. At one point the snow reached my hips and I had to wade through it or bound over the tops of the drifts. At another I clasped my dslr to my side and ran, letting everything go, faster than I ever have in my life, freer than I ever will be in my life. Wolf pranced and I let her howl.

I returned to the lodge only when I felt it was time to go, when I had seen all the secrets the alf woods wanted to share, when I knew I could feel no higher, no lighter.