Walking on Water

I snowshoed for the first time this weekend, borrowing my mother's pair and traipsing down a hill, through a patch of trees, and across Staring Lake. I still can't accept this walking on water business. It seems unnatural to me, no matter how thick the ice appears, no matter how many people I see skiing across the surface, and (eventually) no matter how many trucks I see parked where I once rode in a boat. But I walked, trailing a taller, heavier-than-me fellow who I figured would fall through before me and give me some warning as to the precariousness of my situation.

Not sure if that makes me a survival-minded woman or a bad girlfriend. Perhaps a smidge of both.

As much as I like to deny any affection for my Northern home short of respect for its excellent summers, I will admit that there are aspects of winter that are lovely. The lack of sunlight, I think, makes the rare sunny afternoon a treasure, even at 3 degrees. The white of snow-laden lakes, the white caught in tree limbs yet to be shaken, the snow with ridges, like waves, where you can see the fingerprints of windy evenings; I will concede a beauty here that would not exist in my prior homes.

I have wondered lately if I could stay here longer than I originally intended. If I can tuck more sunny, snowshoeing afternoons into this 6-month doldrum they call winter, I would say it is a stronger possibility than I have maintained in the past. Louisiana still feels like a place I'd like to call home again. And Arkansas, too, sometimes. And other warm, Southern places. But perhaps that's just blood calling, and habits of homesickness. Not a habit I plan to break, but one I could set aside for awhile longer, perhaps allow myself to enjoy this Northern space and its bright, cold, quasi-miraculous, walk-on-water afternoons.