Walking the Pandemic Out of Mind

Grey this late January Midwestern day grows steadily colder. Curving streets reflect back black and grimy. Patchy, dirty snow remains mounded edging suburban driveways. What had been a solid ice pack on the macadam is now small blotches wet from salt and friction.

 

Most living here don’t hate January’s doldrums.  Days of no sun and no warmth are the price paid for summer evenings. In January it is hard to do but people do remember July days when the sun lingers late, not completely gone until 10 PM.

 

January is acceptance, is being here and being now, is knowing it is what it is. January is transitory.

 

Tall deep green pines line the streets in many a northern town.  In fresh snow, these living spires are the image of the ideal holiday card, cards we wish we had sent. When the snow is dirty and stained, we can turn our eyes to long extended boughs feeling beauty in nature’s long game. 

 

Often stiff winds drag across Lake Michigan pulling snow east and down. As likely as not these come howling at night. Thankfully the gales are usually spent of most of their moisture by the time they get here. ‘Tis an amazing thing to watch those tall pines bend and wave against a moonlit sky as the wind rages.

 

Walking virtually empty streets the plague is the furthest thing from my mind. Wearing a hoodie, a poofy insulated coat liner (came from an old destroyed coat), and a 2/3rds length leather shell I barely am bothered by the cold.  My exposed flesh feels it and so this outwear mishmash is topped off with a scarf, a beret and I wear fur lined leather gloves. I know I am an odd sight but I don’t care.

 

Walking empty streets, I can jettison the ugly that pervades all the streams of information flowing in my direction.  My eyes focus on the pines.  My eyes focus on the snow shovels set against side doors. As I lift my feet moving forward again and again my only thought is to avoid the next patch of ice. I laugh a little laugh at the swath of ice that exists only because the trunk of a tree shades that part of the walk when the sun, when it makes a rare January appearance, comes. A walk on a cold winter day in January is as mind clearing as an hour on a meditation mat.