this is a secret

winter is beautiful

winter is beautiful.

maybe it's the challenge of it. driving without studs, fishtailing slightly out of, but mostly in, control. the fear (and rush) of wiping out. blizzards and flash snow storms. sun struggling through the frost. orphan snowflakes after the storm.

or maybe it's the peace it causes--a peace that my body rarely experiences. i love sitting in my car as it warms up, inches of fluff on the hood, peering through the frost-gilded window i've scraped away with an old credit card, watching individual flakes settle from flight.

[extrapolate: perhaps this is an illustration of mankind. how we are all in the process of plotting our fall, hoping we land in some place safe. and the fear that when we melt away, we are too soon forgotten because there will be another season of snow to replace us.]


i stop, i think: what would ever make me leave this state?


the struggle. so content, yet consumed with an itch to KNOW. knowing is rarely a product of a content state. mistakes, experience, frustrations, anger, happiness...the emotional extremes facilitate knowing.

the happiness that is found in being content is easy. it's so beautiful and blissful. i seek it, i remember it, i revel in it.

but i am restless. my body cannot tolerate being content for too long. a sun-starved plant seeking rays of light, my body bends toward new challenges. it yearns to drill into the untapped adrenaline reservoir. meanwhile, my mind has mental tantrums. red-faced and teary-eyed, the demons of the brain are hungry for an expansion of boundaries.


and while this place is symbolic of challenge (recall to mind the chilkoot trail, iditarod, denali), it is merely home to me. it's not enough.


nevermind this, it's snowing and winter is beautiful.