A Journal on Late Winter Trot
Sara Nostant
Late Winter Trot
You can feel the cold breeze against your face. It’s pushing your hair back as you gain momentum. Normally, you might feel cold or uncomfortable in the cool air but the adrenaline you are feeling overrides the wind’s harsh bite. Above you, when you look up, is a path. You take the journey and spot scenery of copious greens and frequent browns. The smell of Christmas trees and recent rainfall is fresh in the air. You can almost smell the dampness and cold. As you step on twigs fall from trees, the crackling sound comforts you. On the ground, where you spend most your time looking, are melted whites with hints of brown and black from residue of dirt and snow. “Slush” is the term when you see it on sidewalks and road or pavement. But here, where only animals and those like you tread, it is simply snow disintegrated from the warmer shelter that a tree’s cover allows.
To the right of you is wooded land that seems as if it could go on for eternity in it’s repetition of trees. To the left of you is a clearing in the trees, offering to your eyes vision of a small body of water. Home to many fish and living plant life, the body is mixed with freezing temperatures of water and ice to match the current climate. You slow down to take in the view with fresh eyes: rejuvenation comes over your likewise spirit. As the clearing comes to an end, you begin to move faster. One foot at a time: a paced left, right, left, right. You find your beat and stick to it. Behind the sound of your footed pattern, you hear crunching under your steps and birds tweeting few and far, since it is not yet time for all of them to return. You feel eccentric and energized despite the heavy whistling of your breath from the long journey the path has taken you. By literal definition, you are alone, but you do not feel that way. The dirty snow matches earthily with the blurred brown and dark green trees you pass, creating a wholesome, aesthetic experience.
At this point
Late Winter Trot
You can feel the cold breeze against your face. It’s pushing your hair back as you gain momentum. Normally, you might feel cold or uncomfortable in the cool air but the adrenaline you are feeling overrides the wind’s harsh bite. Above you, when you look up, is a path. You take the journey and spot scenery of copious greens and frequent browns. The smell of Christmas trees and recent rainfall is fresh in the air. You can almost smell the dampness and cold. As you step on twigs fall from trees, the crackling sound comforts you. On the ground, where you spend most your time looking, are melted whites with hints of brown and black from residue of dirt and snow. “Slush” is the term when you see it on sidewalks and road or pavement. But here, where only animals and those like you tread, it is simply snow disintegrated from the warmer shelter that a tree’s cover allows.
To the right of you is wooded land that seems as if it could go on for eternity in it’s repetition of trees. To the left of you is a clearing in the trees, offering to your eyes vision of a small body of water. Home to many fish and living plant life, the body is mixed with freezing temperatures of water and ice to match the current climate. You slow down to take in the view with fresh eyes: rejuvenation comes over your likewise spirit. As the clearing comes to an end, you begin to move faster. One foot at a time: a paced left, right, left, right. You find your beat and stick to it. Behind the sound of your footed pattern, you hear crunching under your steps and birds tweeting few and far, since it is not yet time for all of them to return. You feel eccentric and energized despite the heavy whistling of your breath from the long journey the path has taken you. By literal definition, you are alone, but you do not feel that way. The dirty snow matches earthily with the blurred brown and dark green trees you pass, creating a wholesome, aesthetic experience.
At this point