what we have here is a failure to communicate

 

Fourteen degrees is cold. With a bit of a wind, it feels even colder. Sometimes, though, such temperatures can be tolerated – even enjoyed. This is especially true when you venture out with a fresh sense of wonder, a renewed delight in the natural world. As I slipped and slid down the Ocean Path that runs along the top of Otter Cliffs this morning, I felt as though I had new eyes to see with, and a heightened awareness of the beauty that surrounded me.

Snow rosyed the cheeks of the granite that makes up this coastline, while the ice had left trails of lace. My boot prints followed the tracks of deer and birds, pressed deep into the crisp snow. The rock cave my sisters and I used to play in wore a fluffy white hat, and the waves tapped gently at the base of it’s stone foundations.

It is hard to imagine that all of this might disappear, that the ocean might someday rise and the pink granite of Otter Cliffs might go ‘glug, glug’ and slip away beneath the surface of the water. With the images and graphs and charts of An Inconvenient Truth fresh in my mind, I felt a little sad and a little afraid, standing there looking down toward Sand Beach.

The biting breeze brought me quickly back to the present, however, and I raised my camera to document the moment, and the scene that was before me. A crow flew over my head, cawing loud enough to startle me, make me laugh a little, and then quickly catch my balance as my feet slid on icy rock.

I have nothing brilliant to say about global warming, or humanity’s somewhat terrifying effect on the world around us. I do what I can in the hope that my children will have the chance to see the things that I have seen. I take pictures.

And I find, as I did this morning, that I am always thankful for that sense of wonder, the genuine excitement, that drives me outdoors – even on brutally frigid winter mornings!