One Winter's Night

Patrick went to bed two hours ago. 

I stayed up to take the dog for a walk before bed, but she was sleeping so warm and rumbly against my legs - she purrs, or something like it - that I almost fell asleep myself. At last I peeled my face off the cushion and she lifted her head, floppy ears perked. When she heard my jacket rustle off its hook, she flashed to the door and wriggled and wraggled - her body awake before she was even aware, I think.

The night was fresh and inviting - still too cold to comfortably yawn in, I realized with a shudder - but warming up after a few weeks of bone-snapping freeze.

Late summer nights, I like walking on sidewalks. Streetlights and porch lights feel familiar and safe as I stride in and out of my own shadow.

But winter nights, full of snow and starlight, pull me to the river. The river trail, which melts into blackness on summer nights, gleams in the snow and welcomes me in come winter.

So Eevee and I walked to the trail. The sky overhead was a deep navy, full of bold stars. The river, though -

That ordinary tideless river? 

Tonight she was lit with magic.

A warm bed of fog lay all along her, misty and frosty and murky. Streetlights from the far side swam through the grey, long fingers of orange sliced by shadows. The trail was crushed with snowmobile tracks and squirrel prints and paw prints and boot prints, with one lonely set of footprints winding over the riverbank and straight across the frozen water to the other side of town.

The deep and sparkling sky atop the cloudy river was one of the most astonishing things I've ever seen. It felt like an upside down night - shouldn't the river sparkle? And the sky be filled with clouds? But here we were in the middle of magic.

We ran straight through it.

Oh yes.

Cracking atop a thick bed of well-pressed snow, we ran through the woods, the little bridge, the tunnel.

The sleepy, chubby, middle-aged mama wearing pyjamas, bare feet stuffed into her husband's skiddoo boots? She was gone and there was just a girl with her foxhound, running beside a river full of clouds with stars in her hair.

In a few minutes I will tuck the dog in and kiss the kids while they sleep, brush my teeth and climb into bed. I will snuggle my cold toes up to Patrick's warm legs and in the morning I might forget, but

For five minutes tonight, I ran through glory.

Amen.