Entry 7: This New Tundra

 Today I went out to the clearing and there was just a dusting of snow all over the ground, on the trees, on the car; everywhere. The kind of snow that is still transparent in that it looks like the icing on top of a crackled oatmeal cookie (if oatmeal cookies were kinda green). It seems as though the temperature outside had been “70 degree t-shirt weather” only a week ago and now already I was bundled up in thick socks and boots, my most obnoxiously big winter coat, and a scarf that makes my head look like I'm trying to burrow down into it. It kind of made me think what the rest of winter is going to be like, and wonder if it’s always this cold. I don’t know why the cold and the first really noticeable snow (I don’t count that freak accident snow that happened two or three weeks ago because it melted the very next day and was fine) seemed to be the coldest start to winter I had ever experienced. Maybe this was the first year I had actually noticed the changes and the first year I had taken time to “spend time with” each stage in the progression of the seasons. There wasn't even enough snow on the ground to make really tracks as my footprints just kind of melted or messed up the snow nor was there enough snow to crunch under my feet. In years past when the first big snow comes I snap into little kid mode, and get really into it. The air was very still, and very quiet.

            The walls on either side of the path today were practically nonexistent. In the summer I can’t see anything once I’m in there except what’s in the paths/clearings (probably because I’m so short). But now that the snow’s here and the walls have been broken down, I could see forever into my little biosphere. Deep down into the path, which usually feels like such a secretive place, I could still see my house. I could almost see the clearing from the opposite side. It was a little less fun. Usually people are looking to tear down the walls and get to “the other side” weather literally or metaphorically. But I was content on “my side of the fence” when I had my high goldenrod walls and my lush green floor. The grass was greener on my side and I had been so suddenly and unwillingly shoved to the other side. Maybe, probably, eventually, I’ll come to love this new tundra.

Entry 6: Weather

I had been looking for answers both for school and for life. I was worn out. I haven't had much time for anything lately, let alone think about answers for things. But I went to the field this time in my usual trench coat on my back, cigarette in hand, and dog at my side. Usually, I love visiting my spot, and I love spending time there, but this time I was in a mood. I stomped through the path to the small clearing and I stood there in the sun.
Apparently this day, the weather wasn't having any of my sass. The wind was so fierce I had trouble lighting my cigarette, and the flaps on the collar of my coat kept blowing up and slapping me in the face. So nature had won this time, forcing me to be still for a few seconds and wait. Now, maybe I’m crazy but sometimes when I get like I was on this day in particular the only person I can bear to talk to really is my dog. I looked at KD and I asked her, “What are we gonna do?” There were so many things running through my mind. I needed to get things together, there were things I was trying to cope with, things I didn’t know how to respond to. In the meantime while I was talking this all out with the wise little beagle, the wind was still going at it hard, and my fingertips had begun to hurt from the cold. After enough time and talking it all out, I think I managed to talk myself into a circle. At one point in my little “chat” I even asked the wind “IS THAT REALLY NECESSARY?!” I voiced aloud. And it continued to blow with the same intensity. I pressed on though just staying in my clearing, and continued trying to figure things out with myself. Something hit me though. Maybe I didn’t need all the answers right now. Maybe not having answers for things at this exact time was the point and that “figuring it out” is the stuff of life. There’s no sense of jumping ahead. What fun is going straight to jail without even passing GO or collecting $200 dollars? Kind of feels like a cop out, but I was satisfied with that answer. For someone like me who always needs the answers and likes to be the boss, having a time of uncertainty is maddening, and therefore this was a new level of clarity for me. So I turned to walk back to my house, and I could have sworn the wind had died down just a little bit.
Funny thing weather. I’m the kind of person who will sometimes take the weather as an omen or a harbinger of some sort. Now bear with me because here is probably where I really begin to sound like a crazy person. In lieu of recent events, I’ve been taking the wind “seriously” in that: I think my great-grandfather who’s been deceased for sixteen years now comes and goes with the wind sometimes. I was really close with him, so maybe this is me just trying to find a way to still be close to him sometimes. So when the wind does things like that, at seemingly eerie times, I always think it has to do with Frank (my GG).

Entry 5: Carpe Noctem

So. I decided to do things a little differently for this particular visit to my mandala. I braved my fears, grabbed a flashlight and headed to the field.

            Yes at first I had trouble getting over the feeling that I was in a horror movie. Outside the view of my little flashlight it was so dark. When I had shone my light up into the tall weeds on either side of the path, they were not officially dead and all brown from the ground to the tip. Beyond them though, instead of the cheery bright blue backdrop and vast field backdrop behind them, there was instead darkness and uncertainty. The first time I looked out at it, childishly, I half expected Leatherface or something to appear from the blackness.

            Admittedly, in 23 years of living here I had never ventured out into the fields at night by myself. I had been down my driveway in the dark a few times back in High School when I would sneak out of the house to go out, but never into that mysterious field.

            So anyways, I stood in the path for a few minutes shining my small stream of light all around trying to get acquainted and also trying to tell myself to stop being a goofus and that nothing here was going to hurt me. The field is like a completely new and different place at night. It was difficult to grasp a sense of direction or tell where I was going. I was fumbling around in the dark-even though it’s pretty much a straight shot to my spot. I thought I was on the wrong path or that I had gone too far a few times, so I tried to look for familiar land marks: certain trees, maple, that I always pass on my way to my spot that once I found them, I continued on.

            The next thing I noticed was the grass. It was frigid outside, maybe just barely enough for some frost-just enough to make the ground sparkle. I saw it as a final precursor to winter. (That’s the one thing I love about the first snow. In the evening, the ground sparkles and gleams in the moonlight and as a poet-I eat it up and swoon over it) So I got my reminder of what’s just around the bend.

            Once I was finally to the right spot, I looked around and tried to find what else would be different, that initial fear of the dark still would try and pop back up in my thoughts, but I was determined to stay for a while. When I exhaled, my smoky looking breath got caught in my flashlight and whirled around in the beam of light, over the glittery grass, and the dead weed walls surrounding me. I was really caught up in all of the new textures colliding and forming some kind of collage before me.  Finally, I was brave enough to turn my light off and immerse myself in complete darkness. I held my breath and clicked the light off. But instead of being enveloped and overtaken by complete darkness, there was something at my back. I turned around to find a crescent moon above me. My own little beacon. Even though things in nature like the phases of the moon run on a constant cycle, I still felt like nature knew that there was still a scared child underneath all of these layers of age and that I wasn’t ready for complete darkness. I love the moon, there’s something so mystical about it as tacky as that might sound but there’s just something about it.

            Standing there, staring up at the moon, I noticed how everything was even more still and silent than in the day, like even the plants and wind had gone to bed as well. It was like existing in nothing, (almost) no light, nothing to see, nothing to hear, no movements there in the darkness. It was an entirely new world.