A Break from the Clouds

Yes, it fit. I also had to purge that insipid song about the sun coming out tomorrow from my skull...  

It was the first time in a week I'd not started the day with an infusion of lapsang souchong. For the first time in seven days there was more clear to the sky than clouds. A light breeze blew at ninety-one sixty. Looking up higher, catching the snow devils dancing headlong into the stratosphere, you could tell wind-speed increased with elevation. Looking toward the Roof of the World, the peaks were shrouded in a cloak of orographic snow. It is said, in winter, the jetstream dips as low as fourteen-thousand feet. On days like this, in times like theses, I believe it.  

The warren of trails, all that is left of an old townsite, is a milk run and whore, but I repeat myself. Be that as it may, it'd been a bit since I'd been there, the snow was fresh, and the avalanche danger was still scary-stupid high further out. Rationalization enough. I wandered past the ruins of a mill from the early twentieth century, where paint-ballers have been known to play war, and rounded down by a local lake. A cross-country skier I encountered thanked me for breaking trail, and I chuckled, remembering how I oftentimes do not encounter the cats I do that for.

I wasn't long. Enough to get that zen sensation of having gone out to frolic, meditation coupled with the most sacred of communion, and a bit of exercise. These are the spices of a good walkabout.

After stopping at the library's book sale, because one can never have enough books, I was standing on my front porch watching the snow devils dance headlong into the stratosphere. It was a haunting juxtaposition against the turquoise of the clear sky above. The snow gleamed in the mild sunshine, a countenance of diamond and polished ivory. Sublime. Such is the treasure of the high country in winter.