The footprints

I’d just arrived home, realizing the instability of life. Having just returned from a wake held for a good guy that was younger than me it was perfectly natural for a bit of a melancholy to settle over me. I was home with only my parents, but still, I decided to run away.

I changed into some jeans and a warm shirt, wrapped a scarf around my neck and slipped into my heavy winter jacket. I borrowed boots from my mother and traveled into another world.

The door I walked through was nothing special. It wasn’t a wardrobe door or a stargate. It wasn’t even a magical door, though it was pretty enough to be one. It was my front door. Outside there was a deep and fresh snow on the ground. No tracks covered it beyond our house. Nobody had been past recently. I set off, heading away from people, and trekked my way through the ever-deepening snow. At the stop sign, not far from my house, I turned back to have a look. It was beautiful. It was peaceful. It was quiet.

I continued on. I looked at the snow with the admiration that such a snow deserves. The snow was still falling, actually. The flakes were large and soft. They gently landed on everything, myself included. It didn’t take long for the fragile flakes to melt into my hair. It was only a little longer before my hair was entirely wet. But I didn’t care. I just wanted to walk, to look. To think.

A lot of people sing about a “winter wonderland”. It is a wonderland, really. How can it be anything else? It’s always feels like a wonderful thing to me when I turn around and look back at where I’ve come from and I find only my footprints in the snow. But regardless of that lone set of footprints, something at the back of my mind reminds me that somebody has been this way before, no matter how it may appear. Just look all around. Houses line the street. You stand on a road. But still, at this point in time you are alone. And so are your footprints. But look again. Your prints are almost gone, filled in by that softly falling snow. And soon, somebody else will walk this way and feel like they are also alone. But they aren’t. And neither are you.