Solitude

I could scarcely contain myself the morning after the winter storm, raising the blinds to reveal snow’s glow under the trees and switching on the Christmas lights (only half of which worked).

Staying inside was impossible. I pulled on my Carhartt jacket and thin rubber boots, and jumped into three or four inches of powder.

No one heard me, not even the doe tiptoeing through the cornfield, picking her way through the stalks. She reached the road and drew up her head, crossing in the slow, meticulous way she had used to get there.

Back inside, I sliced some apples and spread cashew butter on them for breakfast and tried to sit down.

Tried.

The sky’s slight purple tint against the impassive corn stalks called me too much to sit down.

There wasn’t enough light for handheld photography. I tugged at a cloth case underneath my desk and pulled out my tripod. My camera emerged from my Manfrotto backpack. I connected the camera to the tripod and again pulled on my winter gear.

The silent world stretched, only slight undulations in the topography. Yet, I could imagine the place being Aoraki Mt. Cook, Glenorchy (the End of the Earth), or the desolate Scottish Highlands. The wind blew them in, like the Antarctic blasts that flowed over the South Island to Christchurch.