Four Views of Mt. Hunger-- A Love Letter ........... Written by An Anonymous Housebound Girl with a Penchant for Sweets

I sit sluggish and slow, a sister to the occasional wasps who crawl from their cracks into our halls and stairways, to whom I allow a brief moment to wonder at the bitter season before I scoop them up and send them to their doom.

There's a need to be outside for more time than it takes to feed and water the animals, to excavate the mailbox, or to strike the dinner triangle in a fruitless attempt to call wild, sledding children inside for dinner. I know this because as I sit here (sluggish; slow) about to write the first meaty blog post in ages, I can only think about running. I miss seeing the seasons.

Sorry.





It began after Luci's birth, when the wind, quite literally, froze the sweat on my brow as I lugged thirty extra pounds up one side of the road and down the other, in too much pain to realize anything more than the hidden truth that breathing takes great effort.

A few weeks later, still in pain, but of a slightly less dire ilk, I found space to see the spare beauty of winter again. Trees lined the road like stark sentinels, and their silhouettes formed bony poetry as I slogged by, loose-jointed and sloppy. A few leaves still stubbornly clattered on trees that just six months before had boasted untold thousands. A raven, unmoving, wrapped in silence and self-possession, stared balefully at my graceless passage, and skittish songbirds shot skyward with a start before curiosity brought them cautiously back. I found perfection in snowdrifts written with a sweep, in the pale rag of sun caught in the branches I passed, and in the fox that flashed in front of me, its fur all tawny fire in the brush. I slowly began to see it all again, and as my ability to breathe returned, so did my wonder at this world of ours.

It's a small thing, really-- a stretch of bare road that few travel; a handful of minutes alone; a silence formed from layered sounds. A time to think of nothing at all except the rhythm of breathing or a time for thoughts so grand they'd turn pompous if I tried to write them. An ordering of self. A small thing, but it's all I've been thinking about this past stir-crazy week.

Spring was cold, wet, and muddy, but then-- glory!--warm, wet, and muddy. Greens and yellows and browns crept from the gray and black, and, after a long break for a bum knee, I had incentive to slog again. I craved green, mostly-- spears of it everywhere, in little mounds spilled from the skirts of April and May. It's hard to feel memories of spring from where I sit, but I remember it was wonderful, with lots of birdsong and a swell inside.

By mid-summer, I hit my stride and really-truly enjoyed the running part of my time alone. I even began running down Mt. Hunger to the hedgerow and then back up without collapsing. I saw a red-tailed hawk, but only once, scouring the field for weaker than he. I left the house later, unintentionally pairing my time with the sunsets. I wish I could write, because then you'd see them, too. On the hilltop, I moved in step with the blazing center, in view of the sunset's span entire, from feathered edge to edge, and a few times I stretched my arms wide and touched the setting sun on one side and the rising moon on the other.

As summer moved on and too many tasks crammed my days, I left the house after the girls were in bed, sometimes only catching the last embers smoldering on the horizon, crisscrossed by black lines of milkweed and timothy, the clouds thumbsmears of soot on either side. Some nights, I stupidly began my run in the dark, and I'd run by moonlight. If the moon hid his face, I closed my eyes and tried to run by feel and sound rather than by sight. I found that I don't have this ability, which was disappointing but not devastating. (I also found that the noise of coyote packs moving through the field beside me bestows the superheroic ability to run swift-like-the-wind, which, incidentally, could be my name were I an Indian instead of the palest Pale-face.)

I'm wandering, aren't I?

Fall is always my favorite of all. The days grew shorter. I ran with my chin to the sky and squinted in the dim light to watch the bats flit and dart. One night an owl flew by, swooped low, and then, in a moment frozen and surreal, stopped suspended in the air directly above me. On rainy days, my breath formed a foggy nimbus round my head and added another layer to the palette of gray and gray.

The leaves fell, as they do. On windy nights, they skittered across the road like iron-shod beetles on a frantic quest. My every footfall gave a satisfying crunch and scatter. One wet night, I followed a shiny path of leaves set in slick obsidian, only to realize after several strides that I'd stopped breathing, caught by their muted beauty.

And now it's mid-winter again, and you can see I've been thinking a lot about the great outdoors. Thinking and thinking and thinking as I sit and shore up my reserves by eating lots of candy. Don't worry about me, though. March isn't too far away, and I can wheeze with the best. (Just ask the trees...)

_______________________________________________

What's that? ENOUGH with the self-centered soliloquies?!

FINE.

You want snapshots?
Have at 'em, cowboy*.

*Before you unpack your bluster, swagger, and six-shooter, you should know that there are 300 of them, and that they're the fastest draw in the West...

[I feel more relieved to finish these stupid posts than I have since my labor with Luci ended and she was placed in my arms. I'm so glad to be done!]