Last night Sandi and I walked down our snow covered lane to the
camp gate. It was cold and damp, but not the bitter cold of the
dead of winter. It was a humid cold, the kind that lies on you,
not piercing or penetrating, but enveloping the soul, wrapping you
in a mist.
It surrounds and hovers. It will not leave
Once we reached the gate I began to climb the hill to watch the
moon rise. We climbed into deep snow, so deep that at times I sank
to my knees. Suddenly, as we reached the crest, I stopped in stunned
silence.
I was carried off by a magical wind. A warm southwest wind rolled
over the hill. Instantly it seemed twice as warm as down in the
valley.
The smell, the smell was of autumn leaves.
Ahhhh - so warm. I drank it in and smelled and smelled and smelled.
I drank the scent like a dying man. I had been transported to another
land, a distant place where the night breezes are warm. A vacation
place.
I went to my favorite tree and began to climb. I climbed and climbed
until the branches would no longer hold my weight. Looking down
at Sandi, I swayed a good 50 feet above the top of the hill.
On the horizon the moon glowed with a special radiance. I looked
over the valley, the cedar swamp, the stands of pines, and could
see the high river bank about 2 miles away.
The tree gently rocked back and forth in the warm wind. I heard
from a distance a car as it approached from the river road and then
faded into the night.
I wondered what the driver would think, if he knew that two miles
back in the woods and nineteen miles from town, a young man stood
in the top of a scrub oak at midnight, watching the moon rise over
the cedars.
I know what I thought.
I was thankful.