It is only a passing storm.
The storm left late last night, leaving behind a layer of early winter about the mountain, with frosty and frozen ground, naked trees, and stark white ground in the high country. Now the big moon is illuminating the peaks of the mountains like big bald heads. The sun will shine shortly. Much of the snow will be gone by noon. Perhaps by this afternoon I will be riding on a mostly dry trail again.
Yet yesterday, in the throws of the storm, I was not able to see beyond the hillside just across river. My world shrunk, became tucked in, shallow, narrow, enclosed by the storm and its heavy clouds and white air. A heavy veil like a heavy burden draped over me as the clouds encircled the hills.
When you’re in the middle of storm like that, frozen and blinded, at times you can not look beyond. You forget how far you can see. Not only beyond the tightened horizon, but beyond today, beyond the passing of these clouds, to a clearer and warmer tomorrow. The clouds consume your hope and vision.
Trapped. That is how you feel. Trapped by weather you consider may forever remain, cold and wet and stormy.
Alas…
In no more than a few hours from now, the sun will be over the mountain and warming our ground, our home, our hearts. Things change. Get over it, my friend reminds me. This too will pass, she says. And of course, she is right.
In the meantime, I put another log on the fire, and create a little bit more warmth in my own simple world as I wait for the inevitable sunrise.