It’s that time of year again. The time of year when the sheer freezing cold drives us all indoors for the next two months.
When we spoke with pub owners about their slowest time of the year, they told us it’s January and February. I guess that’s because people really don’t leave their homes much at this time. It took all we had in us to force ourselves to emerge in December and carry out a few of our festive holiday duties. Now we are cold and tired, our energy reserves and bank accounts depleted. We sit inside and wait for the sun to return.
Last year at this time, cabin fever struck me pretty hard. I wasn’t upset or anything, but more like a friendly caged lion, desperate to burst out.
I like my sedate little local adventures. However, safety can get boring, predictable. I needed something different and scary and wild. Something inherently local, connected to history, yet exhilarating.
Next thing I knew, I was tromping through the woods on the edge of town, at night, in the snow and cold. I’m extremely grateful that I actually have friends who are willing to join me for my impulsive excursions.
Ever since that adventure, that surreal feeling hasn’t left me. Somehow it’s lodged itself in my psyche and my own internal clock. In the midst of our intense cold and dark, it’s time to return. To continue the adventure.
I realize I’ve collected some items that spend time with me every day, that speak to this experience for me.
I’ve realized that there are three things I keep on my (figurative and literal) desktop: my cemetery seeking playlist, my MennoFolk fear[full] pin, and my Walk in the Woods candle from Ten Thousand Villages. These are the items I’ve collected over the years that remind me of those times I venture out, alive and curious and possibly on the verge of getting into some kind of trouble.
It’s a way of connecting with my reading, on how things maybe sorta were around here 150 years ago, prior to the RM building and maintaining roads. It was difficult, occasionally frightening, and certainly wilder…
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After writing the above note, I did very quickly find myself doing the very same thing, a wild walk, with that same friend. It’s annual, now.
Other times I wandered through woods:
Prone to Wander: A Reclamation
Burwalde Woods & Dead Horse Creek Wander