Transition

Reds are everywhere across the forest canopy now. Reds, and auburns, the color of life renewed. I didn't used to notice these signs of spring, proto-spring. It was all brown and gray, I thought, and then, one day, green. But this is not the way the seasons have it. Now, under two inches of fresh snow and freezing temperatures, roots send sap skyward, the sugars fuel leaf construction. The drive on 117 this morning touched a primitive sense of beauty. I was speechless as clouds of dusty snow feathered through the sunlit forest, giving content to air, susbtance to vast spaces in between trees. Filling a vessel without apparent sides. The pines have a lively look against the crisp blue sky. Powder puffs of clouds waft seaward. In full sunlight, icicles have begun their drip and crystals form and reform on the surface of the snow. These trees do not worry themselves, it seems, but simply plod onward through seasons.

In a car yesterday wondering about that space. Hurling along, three feet from asphalt, the space of the highway is never truly occupied, I thought. Here I am flying through this space, those trees to my right, that grass to my left, and all I know is inside of this small shell, and, even more, where I am right now, right then, was inside my own imagination. Driving forces us to be somewhere else, I thought. How many miles pass without me even noticing but the yellow lines and red lights? Is it conditioning? This, I wondered, is the freedom we defend?