Month: January 2015

Drift

I started cross-country skiing (“Nordic”) in the early 70’s, when I was growing up in central Nebraska.  I’d learned to downhill ski (“Alpine”) in the late 60’s, when my family started making treks once or twice a year to some of the famed resorts in the Colorado Rockies, but I could just bail out the back door of my parent’s house on the adjacent golf course to cross-country ski, sometimes to the nearby college on the other side.  Like many central Nebraska courses, it had its share of loping hills as well as long flat fairways that were just ideal, especially in the days before groomed trails (although there were places in Colorado that afforded that luxury).   Along with one of my (still-) long-time friends, we’d spend hours trekking, talking (usually about music or some book we’d read). 
In those days, skis were waxed depending on the temperature of the air and the ground, sun or cloud cover, wind, and type of snow.  Dirt-free was always good, but powder topped with thin crust, with an overlay of “champagne” snow was what I always thought of as ideal.  More often than not in Nebraska, we’d be dealing with a lot of chopped, wet powder with crust, or just plain ice.  This might’ve necessitated re-waxing a couple of times during an afternoon out, and certainly if we were out after dark. 
Champagne powder is actually something I ski more often in North Dakota along the Red River.  It’s a fine dry power, smaller flakes, but not really granular, favored by our cold weather. When there is a lot of snow on the ground with wind and drifts, it’s fascinating to watch, the wind is unmasked and visible in the waves of powder.   It’s many years since my youth in the Platte River Valley; I’m still skiing in this other wide flat valley in the North, gliding along as I feel and hear the wind, watching its own movie  imprinted on the drifting snow.
link “Drift” by These Imaginary Days  https://soundcloud.com/dead72/001-drift

Eyes To The Wind

The plane lifts off the runway, all are in silent reverie, the silver bird turning to pass over the city lights below. Cutting through and passing above the clouds, all of the human activity of the airport, the highways, and the neighborhoods are suddenly removed and distant. Everyone seems momentarily reflective of where they are going or where they’ve been as night unfolds above, stars and galaxies infinite.
As the clouds begin to clear, the fading sunlight gives way to the occasional trace of a headlight or yard lamp on the quiet plains below. On the wing, drifting along, eyes against the wind as auroras light the way where the ancient glacier meets the cold moonless northern sky, then, now, and again.