Snow Cat

Writers appreciate the unexpected, other than tragedy, costly expenses, illness, disputes with spouse, etc.  This past weekend I was up at Copper Mountain (ski area) to watch a young man race in a snow shoe competition.  It was a spark to my heart and soul as the young buck launched himself off the starting line.  I stuck around for the closing ceremony.  About six in the evening, I walked out to the ski slopes: surreal, beautiful, hauntingly still … snow accentuated by the light from a full moon; not a skier or snowboarder in sight.  

Up on the mountain, a light … a small light … was piercing the twilight that happens after the sunset, but before the night settles in.  I took a picture with my cell phone.  And the light gradually came closer … Moments like these … standing alone with no one to hang out with, at the base of an immaculately groomed mountain, chair lifts suspended … are as if they belong to a dream.    The night was getting a bit darker, the snow was becoming a bit more luminous, and the only sign of life was a piercing, moving, light moving down the slope … 11,000 feet up a mountain.  Finally, the light became close enough for me to have a better understanding, of what I was looking at.    

Up on the mountain, the night mixes with the wind.  Cold rides in with the wind.  Let the light come, down the mountain.  It brings joy, and it pushes back the darkness.