I finally had the chance to test out my new winter gear.  With some snow and ice on the trail and temps in the teens, I ventured out for a run.  Almost everything worked really well.  My hands got a little hot and I ran much of the 6 miles with bare hands.  The jacket shell I was wearing didn’t breathe well and my arms got sweaty but never once did I get cold.  All in all it was a great run.  I also got to hear something I haven’t heard in a long time: the silence of winter.

There is something unique about being away from civilization during the winter (Ok, the Gateway trail is not “away from civilization” but it’s the closest I can come within the metro).  The silence after a new snow can really be powerful.  Growing up near Duluth, I spent a lot of time as a kid out in the woods, and I loved being still and only hearing my breath on those cold, clear winter days.  I got a bit of that on my run.

I also probably read too much Jack London as a kid.  I was reminded of this passage from The White Silence.  My run on the Gateway does not live up to the intensity of this passage but there is a connection:

“Nature has many tricks wherewith she convinces man of his finity-the ceaseless flow of the tides, the fury of the storm, the shock of the earthquake, the long roll of heaven’s artillery-but the most tremendous, the most stupefying of all, is the passive phase of the White Silence.  All movement ceases, the sky clears, the heavens are of brass; the slightest whisper seems sacrilege, and man becomes timid, affrighted at the sound of his own voice.  Sole speck of life journeying across the ghostly wastes of a dead world, he trembles at his audacity, realizes that his is a maggot’s life, nothing more.  Strange thoughts arise, unsummoned, and the mystery of all things strives for utterance.  And the fear of death, of God, of the universe, comes over him-the hope of the Resurrection and the Life, the yearning for immortality, the vain striving of the imprisoned essence-it is then, if ever, man walks alone with God.”

If the noise and business of daily life is a sickness that keeps us from being alone with God, a “white silence” moment is a remedy.

Please consider making a donation to my fundraising campaign.  Five or ten bucks would be awesome and then tell someone about what I’m doing.  I’m Running for a Cure in the New Year!