Snowbound solstice..

Every year, more so than New Years Day, I mark the solstice... My life is ruled by the sun. And this year is no exception... you can choose to fight the darkness, but I live for the light. .. and just like being snowbound.. much of how you live is by choice. So we're really not snowbound, technically, here on the mountain. In fact we're anything but.
It 's a great way out of unwanted commitments however.. "Oh, you know, there is just so much snow, I really can't make it, safely..." Everything is forgivable once you use the "s" word... (Especially if you do and teach dangerous things for a living..)

So world, I'm snowbound. I'm not out skiing with my buddy Jeff.. (or Drew, Jake or Josh, or Clyde or...).. doing laps around his mountaintop meadow. I'm not tubing down icy chutes into the nighttime darkness... the only light being a weak, distant lantern and the winter' s waning crescent moon.
..and I'm definitely not spending time on the trails out my backdoor, regardless of where they lead... there's just too much snow, and cold, and who knows what... it's just not "safe".



..and so I fight the darkness, too. Another log on the fire, a moonlit hike down the snow-filled road..around the turns and down, with the air full of snow-smells and woodsmoke, and then I sit and dream of the long hours of springtime and basking on sundrenched rocks.. so far from where we are...