Editor’s note: Walt Amses is a writer and former educator who lives in North Calais.
[W]inter’s midpoint crept up on us, slinking by like a weasel while we were otherwise engaged, most probably with the din of interminable chaos coming from Washington and the still embryonic Trump administration’s outlandish series of tweets, statements, exaggerations and outright lies, forcing on us a daily recalibration of what’s real, what’s accurate, what’s true and even whether or not these designations actually mean anything anymore.
Although I’ve always appreciated winter, this year’s abundance of snow, coupled with tolerable temperatures much of the time, has provided welcome refuge from the political storm even out trudging through the woods in the middle of a nor’easter. Losing myself in the billowing white powder, I’m easily reduced to nothing more than the physical exertion required to get from point A to point B. As I scale a small rock formation, I’m reminded that it’s probably a 20,000-year-old remnant of an Ice Age glacier, making its way through this area even more slowly than an aging baby boomer breaking a trail.
Imagining myself to be a tiny speck in an endless universe is easy in the deepening snow and strangely comforting as my pulse quickens, filling my body with a steady rhythm, keeping me in this moment, in this place at this time. Where I am and what I’m doing feels completely right, divesting me of any inclination to scroll through the latest shameful blather emanating from the White House. This simplicity makes me disproportionately happy.
As quickly as those thoughts intrude on my reverie, they’re banished, the long streaks of late afternoon light flickering through the pine boughs jolting me back, illuminating these familiar woods in a different way each time I’m out here. Depending on the time of day, weather conditions or season, my surroundings take on a strangeness, prompting me to speculate if I’ve ever really been here before.
Where I am and what I’m doing feels completely right, divesting me of any inclination to scroll through the latest shameful blather emanating from the White House.
Whether or not escaping — even for a short time — is a healthy alternative to troubling reality is a matter of conjecture with philosophers and psychologists landing in approximately the same place: Escapism is probably OK unless it goes too far or lasts too long, morphing into avoidance, which can eventually result in a kind of stagnation. Most escapism in fact can be fairly healthy — reading, watching a movie or even daydreaming — interrupting the daily stressors of life and work or school that could lead to a host of other, stress-related issues.
Emerging from the trees onto the ice-encrusted surface of a 100-acre lake and into blinding, wind-driven snow, I realize just how protective the woods had been, insulating me from the bite of the departing storm’s western edge as well as the the contagion of madness permeating the real world. Any previous tracks I’d left, in fact any evidence of someone having been here before has been obliterated by the storm, wiping the slate clean like nature’s absolution.
As I make a turn across the broad expanse of ice toward home, I’ve got to stop for a minute or two every 30 or 40 yards as a nod to my tired legs. When I do, the icy needles of a ground blizzard find every weak spot in my clothing; every improperly tucked layer; each aging seam; one exposed wrist; and of course my face — even the hole in my snow pants, courtesy of a stray ember from a New Year’s Eve bonfire.
I’m feeling a lot more like Donner than Shackleton by the time the first wisps of wood smoke unfurl on the wind, trudging up the last hill toward the house, anxious to regain feeling in my fingertips and grateful for the two hours I’ve managed to keep post-factual world at arm’s length.