I Guess That’s OK With Me

Early morning on Dead Moose Pond

In the morning the temperature is a single degree above zero. Snow is falling, but the flakes are small, as if stunted by the cold. The cats lie immobilized by the wood stove, their long, heat-hungry bodies splayed across the hearth. I drive up the mountain at the break of day, the road striated at regular intervals by shallow drifts of windblown snow that make barely audible whumping noises as I pass through them. There are few houses along this stretch, and I do not see any other travelers, and their absence, combined with the cold and the wind and the uncertain light of this in-between hour allow me to imagine that I am careening into a desolate land, where safe passage is hardly guaranteed. And perhaps, in a way, I am.

At the road’s crest, I bind myself to my skis and angle toward the forest, where the wind is most forgiving. Even still, I am compelled to stop at regular intervals to swing my arms in exaggerated half circles, forcing hot blood into the tips of my numbing fingers. I know my body well enough to know that I’ll need to do this four or five or maybe six times before I’ve crossed the unprotected expanse of Dead Moose Pond and the trail pitches upward and my heart picks up its pace.

If I hurry, I’ll have just enough time to make the top of the mountain, which is the namesake of the small town situated along its western flank, the very one I live in. Yet there is no marked trail to its summit, and no real way to determine exactly when you’ve arrived there, unless you know to look for the little jar that hangs from the little beech tree that someone – I don’t know who, I don’t know when – decided would be the place. There are scraps of paper in the jar, and a dull pencil, and sometimes I sign my name and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes, I open the jar and just leaf through the paper scraps, curious to see who else knows this place or has found it by happenstance. There are some, though not very many at all, and I guess that’s ok with me.

By the time I return to the car, the temperature has risen to 3, and even along the open corridor of the mountain road, the wind has quieted. It’s still snowing, and if anything, the flakes seem even smaller. So small it’s hard to even be certain they exist.