It is a morning of darkness here upon my mountain. The middle of May is in full swing, but the seasons simply refuse to fully change. Awoke this morning with nearly 14 inches of fresh snow, and it’s still snowing. Nature might win this one. I love it here, the park, the land, the people who have become my friends, but I have now lived in this house for ten months. Nine of them I have endured multi-foot snow storms, and this is my fourth major snow storm in the month of May alone. Life is starting to feel too short to stay here, hoping for a spring or a summer.
I moved five hours south in Colorado, nearly to the New Mexico border but winter is now longer here than any winter in any year of my life thus far. I want sun. I want warmth. I want to walk around outside, without boots, hats, gloves, and a snow shovel. As it is, neither I, nor the guest visiting me this week, can even leave the property; we have to sit here and simply wait for the snow to melt before any vehicle in the lot can even move.
I am a strong man, a capable man, and a proud man. This is not considering defeat. This is considering that, nine continual months of winter, with drifting snow, shoveling and still feeding a wood stove I’ve been feeding daily since October, is simply not my next path. I want to be outside! I have yard work to do, repairs to make, wood to collect for next winter, but here we sit, fourteen inches of snow between me and the Earth.
I want to see the damned sun and feel a breeze on my skin. Instead, I am off to shovel paths for the dogs, another path to the wood pile, and we’ll hunker down inside and feed the woodstove, looking exactly the same as every day from November to March outside. It can destroy a man’s spirits.