Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Paths We Think We Know

We walked under an amazing sky tonight, a deep indigo, like spilled ink overtaking a table, tinged with the most delicate sherbet orange along the horizon. Everything else not sky was black in silhouette, a bold contrast that warmed me even as the cold air reddened my cheeks.


Duncan quickly found the trail we'd carved through the snow last night and I was relieved to see that many others had followed it as well, electing to leave much of the white fields unblemished by tracks. Every now and then we crossed another path, but quite often they joined with ours, cutting a frozen road lined by white, crystal walls.

By the time we made it up the hill the sun had set and the spilled ink had finally claimed the table, and because the clouds had lifted, the sky and snow were finally dark, a true shade, the almost natural shade of night, only slightly tinged with the lights of the city. Standing above the lake I looked over toward the memorial, or specifically the base of Rebel Hill and noticed four pillars of light rising out of the snow, straight up into the night. I'd never noticed the lighting that had been put in below the trees that mark the entrance to the memorial even though I'd been there twice in the past week alone–another reminder of how easy it is to overlook the obvious, see only the forest rather than the trees. Those small lamps cut through the drifts and as an easy breeze sifted snow onto them, they steamed like dancing ghosts that whipped away almost as quickly as they'd appeared. I turned and looked out over the park, over Littleton and what bits of the surrounding city were visible to me and wondered at all the other things I'd passed and had not noticed.

It feels good knowing there's adventure still to be had on these well-traversed paths.

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