A Walk in the Woods...
I don't know if I'd go that far. It's no longer clear, that's true. The sky became flat gray. The snow-covered mountains reflect it, but a strange line, like an artist has painted a backdrop, delineates between sky and snow.
I'd almost talked myself into taking a walk. It seemed immeasurably warmer, and the thermostat did testify to it being 27, up a few degrees. Two harbor seals floated among huddled seabirds in Auke Bay. I can't imagine how cold that water is, but apparently it's warmer than the open sea.
My old grade school is up the road. It was built into a gravel shelf - unstable gravel - which is why it started to split apart sometime during the '70's. They glued it back together and put on an addition. Back when they called it ecology, the students planted baby trees in the surrounding woods. I see they're about thirty feet high now. Feeling old can come in many forms. Enough years have passed for a tree to mature, and be ready to be cut down.
All the old playground apparatus are gone. There's a large sign, explaining in text and visuals, how properly to play. What's the world coming to? We endangered our lives every recess, and were proud of it.
The deep gravel is still there. No grass in Alaska's parks, not ever sand. Large, painful pebbles surface playgrounds. Kid can't get a good head of steam going, and falling in it was a painful lesson.
I wonder if they treat the metal on jungle gyms now, so you can't stick your tongue to it. I decided not to find out the hard way.
They did a cool thing a couple of years ago. We always played back in the woods behind the schoolyard, and they came in, laid down proper trails and made wooden bridges over the creeks. It's a lovely bit of woods, perfect for children. It was easy to read fairy tales as a child, having Alaska's forests as your playground.
There are hollows between roots, Hobbit holes, or Pooh's home, perhaps a troll or two hid there with you. Moss carpets every stone and fallen stump, creating endless fantasy topiary figures. When trees tumble, their exposed roots loom above like attacking monsters.
The woods are still and quiet now. Only a faint birdcall, sharp and thin as this cold, calls from a distant branch. The many creeks are held motionless and milk white, as though photographed with a slow exposure. The red and white toadstools are captured in glass molds of ice.
I break out into an open meadow. Oddly, these are the deadest spots in Southeast Alaska. Sun kills here, and the stagnant, standing water rots roots. The trees are few, wizened, and bilious green. Spongy, creepy mosses cover the ground. Ice pools dot the field, each imprisoning rotted leaves.
It's easy walking, though. The mud is solid. Large but delicate ice crystals encase the grasses, pressing them to the ground. My kicks make them tinkle like a chandelier when you brush against it. Someone's cut a corduroy road through the woods, out of the meadow. I follow it up a while. It just ended at a wall of trees. I decide not to risk getting lost on another cold day.
My wandering take me back through the fairyland. Someone's built some tiny benches in a semi-circle, as though brownies and fairies are expected to convene and argue parliamentary procedure.
Out the other side, the trail drops into a small RV park. Perhaps a warning to the children? Watch your path, kids, or this is where it all ends: Twenty degrees, freezing winds off the water, and you're in a ten-foot Winnibego with three flat tires.