Elements

As often as I can, I steel myself against the elements to travel by foot. So much of the world is lost when viewed through a car window: the smell of winter coming, the softness or hardness of the ground, the sounds of other life forms--mutterings of sparrows and squirrels, the click click click of a bicylcle chain, phrases of small children.

Today I took a different way home, a path through the MaryWoods behind the Mother House, which snaked along a creek and over a wooden bridge. Longer, but more interesting...papery layer of ice balanced on the water, frosted mud crunching under my feet like rice crispies.

When I came inside, I pressed my tongue between my teeth and the inside of my lower lip to find that the pocket had been refrigerated by the air outside. I am becoming the elements!