In the first chapter of Herman Melville's Moby Dick, the main character, Ishmael, talks about our natural attraction to water saying "Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a dale and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic in it".
It is true. Those paths do exist in so many places familiar to me but are obscured at this time of year here in the north. And yet paths to water are still there to be found over the surface of the deep snow. Of course, the animals making those paths are not seeking any sort of magic or beauty as man might in warmer seasons but a basic need. The presence of open water in an otherwise frozen landscape serves to create an oasis of sorts that, as can be clearly seen by the trails crisscrossing this creek, draws life to it like a magnet.
I love your description of this one! When I lived in Kansas City for a couple of years all of the people who I talked to who were from there thought I was crazy, but I had this claustophobic feeling living there being land locked. Everywhere else I've lived has been referred to as "the bay area" - no coincidence!!!
ReplyDelete