Page 83 - Dark Matter Issue5 Part II

The following year, in encroaching dusk on the Winter Solstice, I skied alone up a trail along the

Smarts Brook in the White Mountain National Forest. The whispers of my wooden boards in the snow

plied the silent air, rich with the scent of balsam fir. I skied up to a west-facing outlook, and then

stepped off the trail to watch daylight fade on the darkest day of the year. I felt my skis sink. The late

afternoon sky was pale, the falling sun gone, and the evergreens were nearly black against the

whiteness. I stood for some minutes, waited until true dusk, and then quietly slipped back down the

trail, navigating by the light of the snow. My neighbor’s story had become my own myth, a tradition

that I keep-- whether on skis, snowshoes, or on foot-- of taking myself to a special place outdoors on

the year’s shortest day so that winter will come and the light will return.

In my memory of that first Winter Solstice ski, I see myself as if in a painting, standing still in the forest

on my old blue wooden skis, not aware enough yet to feel nostalgic for the deep snow, for the young

woman I was, and for my neighbor, no longer alive.

But here and now, on the far side of that memory, I am deeply nostalgic for Nebraska Notch in winter,

for the sub-zero nights in my Vermont cabin, and for the sight of 12 miles of frozen lake between two

long shorelines. The memories warm me today, at the end of a mild January, as the temperature

drops below freezing and snow begins to fall.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Anne Bergeron, M.A., I.M.A., is a free-lance writer and

teacher who lives in Corinth, Vermont and is currently

working on a collection of essays that explores rural living

through the lens of our changing climate. She lives on a

homestead that she built with her husband where she tends

gardens, sheep, and chickens. Anne also teaches yoga to

people of all ages, and is a 2011 recipient of a Rowland

Foundation fellowship for her transformative work in public education.