I continue to walk to work almost every day, but my walk has changed with the season. As the snow started to fall, I would sink in up to my knees on the trails and I thought that I would have to switch to walking on sidewalks.
Not a chance! The sidewalks soon disappeared, not only because of the falling snow but because of the snow that was plowed off the roads, creating wedged hills sloping up from the sides of every street. Impossible to walk.
I continued on my paths, then: around the baseball field, by the park, behind the school. All of them have their challenges, but none are as frightening as walking down the street, looking over your shoulder for the slipping, sliding, unsteady cars driven by the blind.
As the snow built up over days and weeks, I fell into a pattern. The tunnels got higher, and the paths changed with the snowfall, growing longer and hillier and presenting new challenges with each storm. My most arduous path connects a park to the university; you must trudge up and over a hill of ice that loses its footholds with every snowfall. The school itself has taken to piling snow right against another path that takes me to my building, resulting in a three-foot drop that is impervious to my attempts to create steps.
There are several of us who take these paths. We see each other, sometimes. Mostly, we know that the others are there because of their footprints. I even know several others' names.
Yesterday, while walking through the park with Marvin, I saw a huge brown creature out of the corner of my eye. Turning, there was a moose not 15 feet away. I walked quickly to Marvin, who hadn't yet noticed the moose (because I think he's nearsighted), and put him on the leash. Then we stood on a bridge and watched the moose cross a creek, then amble awkwardly up a hill toward the school. Many reports bounced around the emails that day about the moose, but I felt that Marvin and I had a special bond with him.
Now, the tunnels have started to recede. The paths are growing flatter and the houses are reappearing. You can see around corners while driving, and people seem to be awakening from their deep winter sleeps and sometimes even stopping at the crosswalks for beleaguered pedestrians. Snow and ice are falling from roofs in great whoomps, breaking windows and smashing fences.
It is hard to believe that the paths will soon just be regular paths, walkable like anything, without rolling, shifting forms. Drip drip drip...
