Winter Hike

When I selected Helaman Halls at BYU before my freshman year, the administration assigned me to an honors dorm and sent me the contact info of my new roommate. In those days, that meant you got a name, phone number, and street address. So naturally, we wrote each other by snail mail. I remember distinctly Michael introducing himself, his hometown of Fresno, California, and his “love of inclement weather.” He grew up in an area that saw very little change in the weather. I shared (and still do) his love of inclement weather because the average day in Corpus Christi, Texas, is about eighty-five degrees with a south/southeast wind at five to ten miles per hour that carries with it the humidity from the Gulf of Mexico. On days that a thrashing thunderstorm would blow through, my mother would open the back door and back windows to let in the cool air and magnify the sounds of the crackling thunder.

Michael was so taken with snow and rain that on days when they were forecast, we’d walk up to campus together, and if he saw a sliver of the sun poking through the clouds, he would exclaim, “Go away, you stupid flaming ball of hydrogen!” I would razz him and say, “That ball of hydrogen gives us life on this planet,” and he would say something like, “It can afford a break every now and then.”

My mother also loved the 1980s version of Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea that ran on the Disney Channel and starred Megan Follows. I enjoyed the series, never read the books. One of my distinct memories from the series is Matthew driving Anne along a wooded horse path during spring. She asks where what the name of path is, and he responds flatly, “The Avenue.” She responds, “They shouldn’t call that lovely place the Avenue. There is no meaning in a name like that. That should call it—let me see—the White Way of Delight.” Likewise, she renames Barry’s Pond “the Lake of Shining Waters.”

It took me ages to learn to see beauty in the things I saw daily. In Corpus Christi, I had no appreciation for salt marshes—they smelled liked sulphur. I didn’t even care for the beach much—it was hot, humid, I got wicked sunburns even with sunscreen, and sand got in all the food. Anne was much better at seeing the prosaic with the appropriate level of wonder.

Some years, I get tired of snow, especially in March or April if we’ve had feet of it to that point. But mostly, I appreciate the experience and how it changes the viewpoint of the ordinary surroundings around me. Few things are better than a walk in the woods when the snow is fresh, the air is frigid, and the sun is bright. I took Dobby on one of those hikes today. This is directly in back of my house, but the way the snow closes things off you might think we were in Banff or the middle of the deep Maine woods.

We are all back to grind mode now. Lucia and Brayden have returned to Hawaii; Lu’s final semester starts this week, and Brayden had to go on a two-month deployment. Lindsay is back at Lock Haven where she works out with the wrestling team on an otherwise empty campus. Katy started a new course toward her medical assisting degree this week, and Grant started a new job last week. Graham has to run on a snow-covered track this afternoon, and Lauren and I are back at work with school committee assignments. Lock Haven and Bucknell are both on the banks of the might Susquehanna. Hawaii is centered in natural beauty. If the track is too messy, Graham will have to run in the woods. Go on, kids. Pick out a spot and give it a name, a real name that means something to you and shows that you have really seen the place.

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