January 2, 2024
The pack ice closed the gaps around the narrow trunks of the scrub last night, no water showing on either side of the path. The only place that remains ice free is in the hollow that dips down, running through a copse of trees, before rising back up the slope to the road. Then the path picks up on the other side of the pavement taking hikers to the causeway, once an old railway, and then out onto the lake.
The lake remains ice free. My turn around is at the road. I used to do a six-mile walk, out to the bridge where the locals throw a line into the water and occasionally hook a big Bass during the season. I have not done that walk in a couple years. Last summer I stopped doing the five-mile version. This summer, and probably from now on, I only do the four-mile version. My hip hurts right now as I write and think about it.
A man whose politeness I once mistook as timidity, greeted me on my walk. He is a South Korean man, formerly a diplomat stationed in Washington DC. His daughter got married and moved to Vermont, so he and his wife retired here to be close to her and their grandchildren. He still walks six miles daily and he is in his early seventies. When I met him a few years back his English was very limited, we could exchange little beyond pleasantries. Today, although his English is still rudimentary, we carried on a limited conversation, but still just the basics. At the rate his English language skill is improving (and I cannot speak a word of Korean), soon, we will be able to have a full conversation about all the meaningless crap that old guys like to go on about.
On my way home from the park, I cross the street at Airport Park and enter the Biscayne Heights’ Street neighborhood. There is a street that intersects at a right angle, sloping down at about three degrees. The slope is acute enough that one can see the roofs of every house on both sides of the street. At the bottom of the hill the road curves to the left and the lakeside homes on the right side of the street obscure one's view of the shore and the beach. All one sees are roofs, then a wide expanse of water: beautiful Lake Champlain. On the other side of the lake is New York state. Beyond the opposite shoreline are the most ancient of American mountains, the Adirondacks.
Today, because the sky was cloudless and the air so pure and wintry dry the peaks of the range stood in stark relief against the azure sky. The view was stunning. Almost ethereal. The sun hung low in the sky, a huge powerful yellow disc, round and magnificent, at about 10 O'clock. As a cold wind blew up the slope toward me, cooling me down from my exertions, I marveled at the beauty. The sun's rays reflected brilliantly off the lake, the light so intense, it was hard to look at. For a moment I remembered why I like winter.
As I crossed the three-way intersection with Teddi, still on her leash, I moved pass the traffic circle, entering the neighborhood. An older woman walking her dog on the other side of the street, as if on cue from a stage director to break my reverie, said loudly into her phone, “I’ve been wearing the same bra for, well, twenty years!" Amen. Cut.
