One Small Step

On Saturday afternoon, my mom and I took a fine and fancy ramble through the yard, bouncing ideas off one another for extending the prettyish sort of little wilderness behind the garden shed, and observing which creatures of the wild have been meeting up on our property. In ankle-deep snow, we discovered, much to our delight, deer tracks! It looked as though a small family had come through, blending in their trails with those of the rabbits, the juncos, and the wookiee.

That night, I wrapped myself in the red and black checkered jacket that hangs by the back door and walked the driveway, examining the shadows of the trees, which lay on the white snow: silent, bold, black lines cast by the bright silver moon.

I woke up Sunday morning to a brown world. As we adjusted our choir robes before the service, we all asked each other what happened to the snow. Several inches had disappeared overnight. I was glad I had taken the time to go explore the trees' shadows against the white canvas of our yard the night before. It's possible that winter has left us until December.

Of course, it's possible that this is a deceptive thaw. In any case, the slight rise in temperature yesterday encouraged me to spend as much of daylight as I could outside. The ankle-deep snow had become ankle-deep mud, the area around the compost bin soggiest of all.

And then last night, I braved whatever wilderness comes out after sundown, and I took a brief, but beautiful stroll around the back of the garden shed, between the vegetable garden and the grapevine, around the deck, and back to the backdoor.

If the neighbors aren't already talking, they will be now. "Well, her mother says she's living at home while she's in grad school," they're saying to one another, "but have you seen the way she wanders the yard at all hours? I think grad school's their little language for something else."

I don't care. The night was too inviting. The moon lit my way better than any flashlight. The mud squashed gratifyingly into the tread of my boots. The weather is still cool enough to keep most animals in hibernation, but a close call with a skunk last summer kept my senses sharpened nevertheless. The rustle of leaves around the strawberry plants encouraged me to hurry a little faster toward the house. Before I began shivering inside my grandpa's old hunting jacket, I stood on the deck, just me and the moonlight, staring into the sky.

:clear night skies:
:31° F: