One of my most favorite things when I was a teen, was to go skiing out my back door and into the trails through the woods, with my dog tagging along behind me. Often there would be no one to be seen anywhere, especially if I went on one of the trails that the snowmobilers hadn’t been down. The only noises you hear of the sounds of your skis rubbing on the snow, your own breathing, and the panting of your dog.
Once I brought an orange with me, and we stopped to eat it, dropping the orange peel onto the snow where it displayed it’s jaunty color for a few moments before the falling snow covered it over. I wrote a poem about that image because the taste of that orange was probably the most orangey orange I have ever tasted it. I can taste it in my mind as I write these words.
In the distance, sometimes, you can hear the sound of a truck, but otherwise, there is nothing, and the only movement is your passage, creating tiny avalanches as you brush past each snow-crusted branch, hanging low over the trail.
If you’re dressed right, the cold doesn’t matter. In fact, if you’re skiing, you have the opposite problem—you get too hot. But that feels good, too, because you know you can generate your own heat when you need it. A man, a dog, some snow—just delightful!