If only G were not out of town, this is how we would have looked today. Instead, I forged out into the wilderness on my own, snowshoes strapped onto my boots, hood up and ski gloves on. The sun was like a 40-watt bulb, its pale yellow light barely cutting through the grey haze. The path was silent, the new snow muting my Yeti-like footfalls, and just one delicate waxwing flitting along beside me. I rounded a bend and there were three deer, noses to the ground. Another step toward them and they bounded away, their upturned tails like ivory plumes vanishing into the woods. (With the clarity that comes to me when I'm fasting, I realized that I will always have this place. When I'm old, I will return to it—in mind if not in body—and it will still afford me this sense of peace.) Back home, I had a steaming cup of mint-lemon balm tea, brewed from herbs dried from the garden this summer.
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