• The Silence Of A Winding Path
    Down the snowflakes fell, like little frozen droplets of lace, just dotting the trees at first, then enveloping them in a chilly blanket. I was only a young girl at the time, no older than eight, dressed snuggly in my grandfather’s charcoal-grey work coat. The snow-covered ground reflected the cold winter sun’s pale light back into my eyes as I walked along one of the wooded trails at my grandparent’s farm. Many times I have walked this path, along its winding trail embraced by the evergreen trees, making you feel as if they are holding you. This time, my walk down this path was a little different.
    In the dead of winter, when it is snowing ever so slightly, on this path you cannot hear anything. Not your breath, not the wind, nor the shiver of the trees as they shake off their snowy blankets. All of your thoughts seem to drift away and are left behind in the footprints. This is what I love about this wooded path the most.
    Whether it was this silence or the trick of the light that confused my bearings I do not know, somehow I found myself lost.
    Suddenly, I felt the icy sting of winter tear at my heart. I looked frantically around for some sign of a trail. No path could be found under the cloak of snow. I looked to the trees, one looking more like the other every minute. Instead of their embrace, I felt only cold needles poking my numb cheeks. The pale light had no mercy on my eyes. I tried shouting for help, but my cries seemed to freeze in my throat. I was a prisoner of the silence I loved so much.
    Searching for what seemed like an eternity, going in circles, trying to find the path I have walked so many times before, finally I had an idea. I began to bend the boughs of small trees and knocking snow off of the taller ones to mark where I had been. A feeling of joy and relief filled me as my efforts seemed to work.
    With this newfound confidence, I looked once more for the path I had walked so many times before. No longer traveling in circles, my fears began to quell. The pale light of the winter sun did not blind me as much. The cold air did not bite at me as hard. The silence I loved so much no longer kept me as its hostage. My thoughts, now calm and peaceful, again were drifting, left behind in my footprints.
    A little longer I traveled down this new route, no longer afraid of being misled. The trees started to have noticeable differences again, my bearings slowly returned to me.
    At last I had found that oh so familiar path. The white flurry had covered my empty footprints; leaving only a fragment of evidence that someone had walked this path before.
    I found myself again being embraced by the evergreen trees, with their blankets of winter’s white veil. There was only a little bit of path left before the silence I loved so much led me back to my grandparents.
    I took slower steps, looking up into the sky, watching the soft droplets of lace fall on my nose and eyelashes. A tentative feeling stirred inside me. The silence beckoned me down its winding paths. To my right, I could see the opening in the evergreens to the farmhouse where my grandparents stayed. To my left, I could see another misadventure deeper into the silence I loved so much.
    While looking towards my left, hunger decided for me that I should return to the warm hugs of my grandparents, the delicious hot chocolate and the welcoming fire that danced in the hearth.
    Still taking slow, hesitant steps, I looked behind me, saying good-bye to the silence of the winding path I had walked so many times before.