Walking to school

So there I am getting ready for work and looking at the gorgeous sunrise shining through my 24” by 48” window, happening before my eyes. The light is coming up over the Royal Society Mountain Range directly outside my window. Through the window I can see the dreadful wind. Normally, the wind is an invisible creature that you have to be involved in to experience but down here and right now it is the mixture of snow, volcanic dust, and rock that show direction as well as speed. However whispery it may be for the time being, it can change to horrifyingly violent with enough force to pick up dumpsters and move them multiple feet. The wind, today, is ever so slow; that is, just enough to put a chill in your bones. Just enough to cause the hair on the back of your neck to stand, but when it blows it likes to wrap around whatever it catches almost like it is creating a whirlpool -- a vortex around its prey. Then, just as fast as it caught you, it is gone. All the snow and dust is lying flat on the ground motionless: waiting, stalking, and thinking of who or what it is going for next.

As I make the outer door to my building I pause for a moment to do a mental check of stuff for work. Work sweatshirt? Check. Ball cap? Check. Sunglasses? Check. Writing instrument --pen? Check. Now I am ready to leave. So I reach for the outer door and slowly peer outside to see how hard the wind is blowing. To my surprise it is docile, for the moment. As I am walking down the metal staircase I say, “Self, I hope it doesn’t pick up once I leave the security of the landing.” I am lucky today as the wind is not lurking behind the building waiting or watching me. I am completely free to continue on my long, arduous journey to work.

The morning, this morning, is different from the last few. It reminds me of when I used to walk to the school bus stop, way back when. I always remember walking up the hill by my house, when we lived 4 blocks from the beach, and seeing the sunrise coming up over the marsh on my left where the mix of warm water and cool air created a fog that slowly rolled up the landscape trying to catch me before I made the top of the hill to see the gorgeous ocean on my right. Back in McMurdo I don’t have the luxury of a marsh but I have a snow-covered volcanic rock parking lot affectionately named “Derelict Junction.” I see to my left the wind has indeed picked up a bit. I see a newly created whirlwind coming from the alley between a few of the buildings. The snow and dust create a fog so that I cannot see the person’s face just 50 feet to my left but only the silhouette of their “Big Red” jacket. It is trying to chase me, just like the fog used to on those cool spring and summer mornings back on Cape Cod. It does end up catching me, so to speak. It seems to have lost its momentum right at my feet. The tenaciousness of the wind to find me, get to me, and hold me is futile since I take that fateful step up the stair, effectively putting myself out of its reach. I make a quick left at Gallagher’s and then a quick right behind Medical and I have only 50 feet to go up a snowdrift-covered volcanic rock hill, over some power cords that are keeping our fire apparatus warm and tidy, past four vehicles that I will surely be out to check on in less than an hour, and then to the man door at the fire station.

As I step inside the fire station, I take a minute to think and catch my breath, being as it is -15 degrees out. In the three minutes it took me to get to work this morning, it brought back so many memories of being a kid again: walking around in shorts on a brisk and balmy 40-degree day before school, riding my bicycle in the rain just because the rain was warm, seeing the waves crash on the flooded beach parking lot while there is a hurricane coming up the East Coast.

Who knew that the wind could bring back so many memories?

Stay Frosty
-C

P.S. The picture is a "Sun Dog." It is a rainbow that forms around the sun when there are a lot of ice crystals in the air. They are better seen through polarized lenses, either sunglasses or camera, but with the naked eye you can still see the truly beautiful ones. You just have to work a little hard at it. <(")