Details at the Cusp of Winter

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I know I should've had all of my homework done by now. It's just getting to the point where I really really need vacation. I don't want to think of how much reading is actually left for each of the classes I am in. I've already partially checked out metally. My brain is buried in a future snowbank somewhere in Maine, dreaming of wilderness and evergreens and coffee on the day before Yule.

It is days like these that invoke thoughts of things outside of myself and my little corner of the universe. Sometimes I think of fate, and the path on which I travel. Sometimes I wonder when I'll have time to sit outside under a tree without a time limit again. They have so much to impart and I feel like I deny them that.

The day was full of little enchanted things when I snapped back to reality. The leaves are finishing their slow drift from branch to ground. There is that certain chill to the wind that, like Eddard Stark, reminds us that Winter is coming. Out by the lake, there are hardly any distractions -- the cold off of the water is too much to bear for too long. The stones I sat on were freezing. Things seem to slow down just a little more. I made my peace with Winter when I was a freshman here at Oswego State. The version of  "a lot of snow" here versus at home are two completely different things.

I like to notice these tiny details. They remind me that things are alive, even when everything seems bleary and trying. I like feeling that even though the colors are fading around me, life goes on. Soon, the enchanted things will be frost on the last green blades of grass. It will be the extra fur the squirrels grow to protect themselves from the cold. It will be the red down feather a pretty cardinal bird leaves behind as it flits from this tree to the next.

So my mind's already buried in snow. All of this around campus in a percipitation-plagued town -- that's my escape while still being entirely present. There is so much to observe that I don't have to care about homework while watching and understanding this transition. The best part is that this time, the cusp of winter overlooks a storm aptly named Athena. I've gladly braced myself already.