It wasn’t a very long sojourn in the park today. I wasn’t feeling up to par and the temperature was a bit on the low side. In fact, it took me about an hour indoors in front of a fire to get my toes back to feeling normal after this walk. But my son-in-law gave me some warmer boots tonight, so perhaps tomorrow won’t be quite so chilling.
The park was quiet, with very few out when we ventured over. Rigby, the big red dog, wanted to go and my wife agreed to being dragged hither and yon by him, so we hopped into the car-with-the-heater-that-doesn’t-heat and took off for parts known. In hindsight, perhaps we should have taken a vehicle that has a heater that does heat, but it seemed like the logical thing to do at the time. Today the waters were frozen over and covered in a woolly blanket of white. Standing under a copse of pine trees, listening to the sounds of the city muffled by the sweep of easy wind and downy flake, a serene quietness broken only occasionally by my wife’s cries of aggravation as Rigby bounded from place to place with her in tow.
Snow really is magical, both in the way it transforms a landscape from the mundane to the celestial (it is, after all, the heavens come to earth), and in its hushing of the strife of this world. I did try imitating my hound by leaping around a bit, in the hopes it would warm my toes, but laden with gear that banged against my sides and back, this venture did not prove to be very practical.
We navigated the park from Lafayette Bridge to the Art Museum, stopping periodically for photos: trees against the snowy sky, tall grasses laden with crowns of cold, iconic views of the park, such as the World’s Fair Pavilion and such serendipitous moments as favor the prepared. Rigby was happy, and the wife and I headed off to a grandson’s birthday party.
