Glorious quiet.

So, today I embarked on a marvelous and life-threatening adventure: I organized all my papers that have accumulated since I got married! Ah, what a brazen thing to do. I was attacked by the viscious school papers of two semesters and ambushed by random writings that were hardly readable. But rest assured, my dear friends. I came out of those encounters alive, if barely. I am currently bracing myself against the horrors I am sure lurk in my fridge. . . It's been a bit too long since I cleaned in there and you just never know what you're going to find on an expedition into the nethermost corners of the fridge!

Seriously, though, I feel like I'm starting to wake up from some kind of deep sleep. What do you call it? A trance? Pretty much I stopped doing EVERYTHING and my gears have finally started moving again. I looked around my house and saw the sad effects of doing NOTHING and got right to work. It's miraculous how fast a tiny basement apartment can become clean when someone actually cleans it! Amazing, I know.

When I was organizing, I came across a journal I kept for a hiking class my freshman year in college. I was required to go on three hikes a week for the class and record things that I saw and noticed. Since I didn't have a car, I took all my hikes with my friend Eryn right around the campus. After almost every hike, I got out my notebook. And what a cherished little notebook it is! When I first started, I was a little mundane with my entries, but over time I got more comfortable and started writing long entries about what I was thinking about as I walked. One of my favorite entries talks about walking in the snow. Here it is for you:

Date: February 1, 2005

Location: Buena Vista [Virginia]

Time: 2:00-2:50

Distance: ??

Weather: Very cold and snowy. There were at least six or eight inches of snow on the ground.

Othere hikers: Are you kidding? Who else would be crazy enough to be out in weather like that?

Interesting sights: The sidewalks hadn't been scraped, so it was one hard little walk. Eryn and I normally do it in 25 minutes! With all the truding and sliding, it took twice that time. The snow was coming down steadily at that time, piling up on our hoods. Aside from the sound of cars, the snow brings with it a glorious quiet, a testament that God is real. It amazes me that people can walk out into a snow storm and not know. The tiny crystaline flakes embrace warm skin and melt. The world is a swirl of white. My heart cries out, "Take me away! Take me away!" I want to get lost in an eternity of white. Spring can wait.