Powder

Powder

The snow I knew as a child was pure joy.

Where I grew up snow maybe came once a year. It fell in the dark of night and transformed the world into a playground of slippery madness. Everything shut down and we were free for the day. We would sled and slide, throw snowballs and build snowmen. None of this lasted more than a couple of hours at a time. By then we were cold and soaked to the core, half frozen. We would make our way back to the house and strip. Sit down on top of the heat vents and drink hot chocolate. When our bones had thawed we would do it again. My mother hated those day, by the end of it we had worn every peice of clothing that we owned and the laundry pile was incredible. By evening the world looked more like a cottton field that had been harvested than a wonderland. Dirty, with just a speckling of white here and there.

As a young man I moved to another place. Here the snow was different. It started falling in November and didn't stop untill it slowly turned to rain in the spring. In the mountains in Febuary the trees were only about twenty five feet tall because twenty feet of them were under snow. This snow scared me a little bit. I didn't know how to deal with it and there was just so damn much.

I didn't get over it untill I went for a three day camping trip in the snow. Walking away from the car at that trailhead, to me at the time, seemed like utter madness.

Being in the mountains when the snow is falling is probably the most peaceful thing I have ever experienced. Two feet of powder on top of the fifteen feet that was already there. The trees, all thick pines, coated from top to bottom. The air thick with fluffy flakes slowly sifting their way down to pile themselves upon the piles of others. If you sit still for anytime at all it tries to cover you as well. All of this snow absorbs every bit of the sound, it's absolutely amazing. So quiet and beautiful.

Walking in that kind of snow is forgiveness.

You go a ways and find yourself at a spot where you would like to rest and maybe consider where you are, where to go from there. As you look back the path by which you came is clearly illustrated by the tracks in the snow. There before you all the mistaken steps and stumbles. The spot where you slipped and fell. As you sit and rest the snow continues to fall. Blanketing everything around you. Before you know it, you look around and the path by which you came is gone. The snow has filled in the struggles and left a clean path.

To truely forgive someone, I've found, is one of the hardest things to do in this world. Forgiveness is not accepting the past as past and turning your back on it to move forward leaving the damage were it lies. Forgiveness is allowing the damage to be erased. To look around and see things as if they never happened. It is very hard to do. Even harder yet, is to forgive yourself. Even worse we blame ourselves for the reactions we receive from others. The husband who cheated, the person who molested, the family that didn't want us, the love that didn't love us.

Letting go of those things can seem like utter madness. A lot of the time, whether we realise it or not, those are the things we use to define ourselves. From where I stand the way to peace with these things that damaged us and the damage we have done to ourselves and others is to figure out a way to forgive. Not forget mind you, forgetting allows you to repeat the same mistakes. You have to learn and grow, but the only way you make room for more love and joy in your life is to let go of the past. You only have two hands, awful hard to pick up that gold nugget when they are full shit.

It's late November, the snow is falling in the mountains. Figure out a way to find some peace. In one month we start a new year, what will it hold for you, gold or shit?

Personally, I'm trying to put down some of the shit.