Month By Month

January

1/1/00

Dear the Mountains Around Me,

How I have longed for this day, for this tangibility. The open road held me in its palms, and now I lie in the sleeping white, my body folding into the cold. I am waking up. My body is electrified. My body is singing.

I've been waiting so long for this release. Now it is here, and I feel the relief, still—disappointment is a shadow here, sightless upon the soft snow.

The quiet land that surrounds me is ivory and still, a whisper of January's clench. A forest slumbers in the distance. I will go there soon. The mountains contain us, hush, hush. There is no wasted time here. I am alone. I am young. Everything around me is ancient and untouched. I am patient. I have time.

I breathe in and out.

                                                     ~

A week has passed since my last entry. Now I stand in a world of fragile glass—for I have come to the forest.

I can tell harsh snows passed through the trees long ago, for their remains chime as I walk, delicate. Ice upon ice.

I am a woman of this ice, of the tentative snow, of the brittle silence.

In the midst of this vast forest is a frozen lake. I will make a home here. A home. It must be a gift sent from January.

January, the month when I escaped.