One April Morning
It had snowed overnight - perhaps five centimetres of wet, clingy stuff that promised to turn to slush in our badly torn up driveway as the temperature moderated. In fact, the precipitation had already turned into a fine mist as I zippered up my jacket and stepped out the back door.
Sasha had heard me rummaging about in my boot box just inside the door and had interpreted that as a signal for our regular morning ramble. We had not had much of an outing the previous day - one of those days when my own schedule was chopped up into rather inconvenient chunks of morning and afternoon commitments - so, despite the rather gloomy appearance of the morning, she was anxious to get going. I bent over to detach her line, grabbed my old pair of touring skis that I leave by the back door, slapped on a bit of kick wax that, I hoped, would get me up and over the first big hill in back of the house, and off we set.
In early April, there are mornings when the crust is firm and fast, ideal for spring skate skiing. On such mornings, almost always mornings of rare sunshine and sparkle, it is an immediate joy to set forth to see what has been happening in the woods and fields in back. On others, the warmth of the day has already turned the snow into mush - on those occasions, snowshoes are the only possible options, and on those days we don't usually get too far because Sasha, big dog as she is, breaks through and wallows through the slop until I take pity on her and call the trek off until better times present themselves. This morning, though, the transportation of choice was my old, wide touring skis - they are not fast, but they carry me over the snow - and Sasha is able to manage with only the occasional breaking through.
To the top of the first hill, and I stop to take in the morning scene. After ten years on this property, this vantage point still provides a daily thrill, but this morning, I realize that the scene is unique. It is a soft, grey morning. There are tendrils of mist over the far hills, and the snow, newly freshened by the overnight fall, is pristine in the muted light. And the river, always ice clogged and motionless at this time of year, lies open, calm, but with the breath of moving air on its surface. I have never seen this in early April - this remarkable combination (to my eyes at least) of open water and completely snow covered land - and I stop to admire its beauty. And it is beautiful, I realize, this composition of grey and white - endless shades of grey blending into the purity of the snow on the ground and the mist of the clouds in the lowering sky overhead.
As I pull up my collar and snuggle my toque down over my ears, I realize - for the hundredth (or the thousandth?) time in this place - just how beautiful it all is - and just how important it is never to take it for granted, because, no matter how often I look from here, it never repeats itself. And so I look and try to absorb it, not wanting to forget, not really wanting to move, but realizing that the impression is one of a moment. At that point, though, I also realize that the effort to get out here - to give Sasha a bit of exercise - has been rewarded - and so I should get on with the business of the day. Off we go - and for the next hour or so, I am filled with the serenity of this singular morning in April.
