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Monday, January 2, 2006

Hello Again

While there were five people staying at Bill and Doug’s cabin retreat this weekend and at least seven others at nearby cabins, the most important visitor was nature itself. Like a glamorous party guest dressed to the nines, the snow-laden trees and valleys and lakes demanded our full attention and awe. The curving, white roads we traveled on were our quiet but firm docents, prompting us to admire this vista and then that as we rounded one bend and then another. From the warmth of home we watched a bald eagle — a mere 15 yards away — survey the creek below with watchful eyes, its beak bright yellow and its body much larger than I had imagined.

As Bill and I trekked through the woods with careful steps, deer bounded ahead of us and snow fell from quiet trees onto our covered shoulders. We crossed a creek over a handmade bridge, a relic from a previous resident whose children wanted a shortcut to their friends’ home.

We ate and drank in the company of others who escaped the cities for a New Years weekend in rural Wisconsin. Between meals we drowsed by the fireplace with magazines and books and campy movies, laughing when Bill woke himself with a loud snore and Larry tooted unapologetically by the hearth.

On New Years Eve, we gathered outside by a fire and watched the wood burn. While eating a warm and comforting stew, we each wrote on a piece of paper something that we wanted to be rid of as we crossed the boundary into 2006.

Just before midnight, one by one we threw those burdens into the fire. Written on theatrical flash paper, they burned instantly in a colorful blaze. Away went work stresses, debt and “the whole month of December.” When it came to me, I held out my piece of paper so it was visible in the firelight. Written in four block letters was the single biggest thing I want to throw off in 2006: FEAR.

Why? Because in this coming year, it’s time to put aside fear and go for big things in love, friendship and career.

Out there on New Years Eve, there wasn’t a giant neon ball counting down the seconds to midnight, just a small, cheap wristwatch with an approximate time. The exact minute didn’t matter. When it was close to midnight we toasted champagne with glasses made out of ice and set off fireworks that exploded high above the pines. Our cheers echoed back to us as nature amplified the beauty by reflecting the colors off the snow on the ground and in the trees, saturating our upturned faces in ever-shifting shades of blue and yellow and red.

Welcome to 2006.

Posted by Aaron on January 2, 2006 10:29 PM