K and I went to stay at the Kilmorey Lodge a few years ago as an excuse to get out of the city and spend some of the Christmas holidays together, alone. There isn't much to do there in the winter, except enjoy the peace and quiet of Waterton in the off-season. There were some deer searching for food... the odd bird would chirp in the distance... but for the most part, the onlt thing to hear was silence.
We went for a walk one night, and just as we started walking, it started to snow lightly. Hollywood snow. Fictional snow. Snow that only falls on TV or in books or in dreams.
Fresh snow always reminds me of how the world forgets... and it's people who remember. Whether through stories, books, moments engraved into our mind, we remember, but the world just moves on.
As we were walking silently, I looked behind us to see our footprints filling up and disappearing in the snow. It made me think of a tropical beach, where the tide washes away any evidence of people as they stroll along the water at sunset. As we walked, our footprints disappeared more and more. I knelt down and placed my hand in the snow. The crystals melted away, leaving the perfect imprint of my hand there. I stood up, and we kept walking. I looked back once more to see the flakes fill up the void beside the street, slowly and methodically painting over the imprint I left.
I guess I just wanted to leave something behind, even if I knew the inevitability of it disappearing once I'd gone.
- T
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