ChrisRodkey.com - Calm - February 15, 2004

Calm

Eating an ice cream sundae at 4B's in Missoula.

But now, under the unsettled skies of this valley, I feel free. I'm not stuck in the traps I made for myself. I don't see the morning as a dreary beginning to another painful day.

To use an old cliche, I feel at peace again. I feel like, when I roll down the windows of the car and the cold night air rushes onto my face, the world is mine. How could anyone stop this? Why would anyone want to?

Spring has already come for me.

n the late hours of the night I watched the three stars of Orion's belt dip slowly down toward the edge of the horizon. Orion is only visible in the winter because of the way the Earth turns. Tonight I remembered that a cold winter does pass.

And so, too, do the times in life when all seems cold around you. Over the last few months I watched myself turn into a person I couldn't recognize. I remembered wistfully what it was like to feel like nothing could stop me.