Dusk

A view of the dusk lights of Gold Bridge from a hill across the river from town.

I am stumbling over how to start this post. It probably has to do with the work I have done today, a professional day, pouring over vast quantities of information on Restorative Justice on the internet. Searching that was interspersed with clicking on links leading to the occasional interesting Youtube clip or blog roll. Information in. Tangled strings of thought, not pausing long enough to digest what is coming before there is again more, something related but different, more words, more of someone else’s thoughts jumbling up with my own. When I spend too long on the net it makes me feel overwhelmed by the vast amount of information that’s out there. I need to remind myself that it’s okay to get lost, to surf, and that eventually I just might wade out onto the exact shore I was searching for in frenzied map-less abandon.

There are lots of things to say. I killed the mouse last week. Put a smudge of crunchy peanut butter in the tiny mouse-sized bowl to lure the animal to its death and placed the set trap gingerly under the kitchen sink. I went upstairs to bed and lay awake thinking that each pop of the fire sounded different than the one preceding it; each new bang sent me straining to hear an imagined whisper of violent scratching as the little animal twitched itself stiff, the thought finally drifting away into a smog of sleep. When I awoke I immediately looked under the sink. The mouse was there, as cute as anything, bristled full whiskers, glass-black eyes still open, staring with life as peanut butter was just about to BANG! I flung its tiny body out onto the snow in the hopes it would serve as a meal for a passing crow, reset the trap, and it has been empty ever since. I thought about the little mouse all day. Thankfully she didn’t seem to have started a family yet.

Skiing yesterday was AMAZING!!!!! That’s all I am going to say.

Returned home to bare streets, the snow having washed away with the warm rain that must have soaked the town while I was walking up a mountain in heavy snowfall. Everything is muddy and the streets are strewn with ridges of gravel that was spread to keep the trucks from slipping.

On the drive home last night I saw a cougar. It lit across the road like a shooting star, and disappeared up the steep embankment beside the road so quickly it was gone before my thoughts could process what I had just seen. I immediately pulled over, stared up into the darkness, narrowing my eyes, hoping to see something moving between the black silhouettes of the sentry trees. Squinting in vain, of course, the animal probably watching me safely beyond the range of my daylight eyes. It was HUGE and healthy-looking, its white belly glowing in the bright of my high beams, streaking across the road like a rumor of an animal. A trace of body, of tail, of whiskers. I had to turn off the audio book (Three Cups of Tea—super interesting, highly recommended) to drive on in silence for a while once I had re-caught my breath. What a magnificent animal.

On my walk through the woods tonight as the light bled from the sky I was thankful to have my two hundred pound walking companion. A powerful wind sent the trees into conversation like a flock of rusty barn doors left to shriek and whine the rest of their days away, no longer of use in a horseless field. The half moon lit my steps as I paced the road up to Gun Lake, the wind trickling through the thread-holes in my down jacket, Sanford panting at my heels. I thought about the cougar I could barely see, wondering what, on this windy night, could see me.

I’m finished with the blah blah for tonight, so here are some pictures. I have decided I am in love with the trees around here. Enjoy. Remember to click on the pictures to view them in large.