Snowshoe

Snowshoe
    Screeeeeeaatchh, Screeeaatch, Scree-eeatch!  Eyes flickering open.  Sitting up, I have to rub them, trying to shoo away the grogginess.  What the hell was th- Screeeeatch!  Swinging out of bed, I amble over to the window to see what the commotion is, but everything’s gone white.  For a moment I assumed the light was playing tricks on me; the world doesn’t just “white-out.”  Except for one thing: the snow has come, and my step-dad has begun shoveling off the walk.
    As a child, snow usually signified very limited periods of fun.  Snow meant wet clothes, possibilities of sickness, etc.  But not today.  Today is December twenty-seventh, two thousand seven.  Two days ago, I received a brand new pair of snow-shoes, and I intended to use them.
    To suit up gave me a feeling that I wouldn’t have even been able to describe.  So many layers: windbreaker pants, wool socks and hat, wool gloves, poly-pro long sleeve, sunglasses, hiking boots, jacket.  Strapping the shoes on, and running out the back door, the cold hits me like a giant, frozen, fist.
    The snow, about three feet deep already, winked at me from all across its surface, revealing a million suns winking.  Tramping out my foot sunk down to just under my knee.  With a jerk, and a flip, I had pulled my shoe free and flung off the excess snow, like a dog shaking water from its coat, and plunged my other foot through.  This made travel slow. 
    As I trek up the hillside, I can feel every cigarette I have consumed over the last year or so, hitching my lungs and tying sailor’s knots in my sides.  About forty-five minutes later (keeping track of time really is next to impossible when working out I believe,) I looked back to see that I was only half-way up the mountain. Fuck.
    Sweat was pouring down my nose from the rain gutter that used to be my eyebrows, my breathing, so ragged I have developed a wheeze, and my legs are starting to freeze from the sweat.  I put down my head and  plow on through the snow; creating a trail that I will later claim exclusively as my own.
    After a long, and grueling, hour (or two, or three) I finally break up and onto the ridgeline that signifies the peak of my ascent.  It has been such an arduous trek, full of sink holes, and ragged breathing.  But I had the greatest view in the town.
    I don’t think that enough people really appreciate the simple beauties that can occur in their town, especially a town with as many hidden views as Pocatello.  Looking down and seeing a town, my town, that normally had the hazy look of a polluted, on-the-verge of apocalypse, view to it, blanketed in a soft, heavy snow.
    I turn left, a little way up the ridgeline and see a little clearing, with a circle of trees dancing around it in the breeze; the perfect place for a turn-around.
    I know that there have been people here before me, the slashed out areas of trees for a controlled burn are sign enough of that, but as far as I’m concerned, I may be the first, and last, person who will ever see this untouched, white world.  As I trudge along, I mull over the thought of the snow.  Something that can be both heavy and light at the same time, like a one ton feather.  The idea of it seems comically mundane.
    I stop to turn around at the copse and try to chuckle; but I can only sigh, because I’m so fucking tired.