In some places, the ice is almost entirely gone.
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
From these, our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.
-Lord Byron
Two days ago, the high temperature was in the high thirties. Yesterday, it was in the mid-forties. Today, it’s forecast to be 50℉! I expect that much of the sheet-ice that was on the rail trail three days ago will be gone and what’s left will be soft and slushy on top. Sunlight goes through translucent ice and is absorbed by the ground. It then warms up the ground and melts the ice from below. That puts a small airgap between the ice and the ground which can more easily be broken. The end result is that whatever ice is left, I expect it to have a soft surface that my boots can bite into and some of it will break when I step on it. If ice goes crunch underfoot, I won’t fall down and go boom. So, I leave my cleats at home, to preserve them for the next time Waldo and I go walking on a glacier. In Hudson, where the trail is never plowed and hasn’t been covered by a solid sheet of ice, I expect things to be just slushy and lumpy and the cleats won’t help any there anyway. My boots will keep my feet dry and the treads are good enough in the slush to keep me from falling.
Once we get to the rail trail, I see that my expectations were pretty much right on. There is only around 20% of the trail that has significant ice and my cleatless boots get good traction on what ice I have to walk on. Waldo is off doing his Waldo thing by himself, so I’m left to put my gait on autopilot and fill my mind with the wonders of winter (in 50℉ weather!).
Never having been plowed, the off-trail landscape, even the reservoir, is still completely covered by a thick blanket of snow and ice. The overall whiteness is capped by a gray overcast sky. The boundary between sky and earth is delineated by a beige spikey swath of deciduous trees still in winter slumber. Even now, still weeks away from the vernal equinox, I can see tiny little buds on the branches of nearby trees and on the stems of weeds, but still no leaves anywhere. Here and there are freckles of pale green, where embedded white pines show off their year-round ability to photosynthesize.
The air is clean and cool and I can smell the wetness of the melting ice and snow. I hear the gurgling of clear running water flowing in the creeks and ditches next to the trail. I hear no birds. Most, like the Emmy-bird, have not yet migrated back from warmer regions. I know there are some birds around, like crows, but they don’t seem to be out and about today. I see no rabbits, squirrels or chipmunks. I wonder where everybody is on such a warm day, the first after so many really cold ones. Maybe, after shivering hard in their hidey-holes, they’ve decided to have a good, warm sleep-in? It’s curious.
There is very little wind, but the air is still cold enough to make the exposed skin on my chin and cheeks a little numb. I’m wearing a light jacket, thin gloves and my wide-brimmed Walking-With-Waldo hat. My uncovered ears are not cold. As I walk along, I do my best to empty my mind of the incessant chatter that fills the damned thing morning and night. I open myself to using my senses to feel the ambience and try to become one with my surroundings. I doesn’t last long…
I learned a new word yesterday. It is koyaanisqatsi, a Hopi word that means “out of balance with nature.” I don’t know much about Hopi culture, but what little I do know about Native Americans suggests that this includes being out of balance with yourself, as well as with the world you live in. They see themselves as an integral part of nature, rather than an outsider living in nature. The question is, how can I possibly restore that balance without being intimately aware of the nature of which I am a small piece? I look, listen, feel, hear and smell the world that surrounds me to gain that awareness. It is calming and enlivening.opi word that means
In Buddhism, there is a concept of balance, the word for which is tatramajjhattata, which translates to “equanimity” or “neutrality of mind.” It is a compound word made of Pali words that mean “to stand in the middle of all this.” My take on it is the ability to be immersed in the furor of the world without being drawn into all the drama. How better to be in balance than to be able to see the world around you without the distraction of emotional reaction? To just observe it all and stay at peace with it and yourself. That’s something I cannot do very often, but it’s a lot easier when I’m out here in the woods with Waldo.
Waldo and I finish our daily six miles – even the mile and a half of slush, ice and snow in Hudson. It’s been a good walk and I have regained some of my “center.” Waldo is eager to go home, have supper and return to his throne on the balcony. I don’t think he is ever far from his center.
Tomorrow is another day and another walk in the woods.
But not in Hudson…