Charles DuBois once said...

The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.

Just love this.

broken state

It sounds almost funny, except it is not. For the past year I have been trying to pay my taxes. Not for a few months, not even for half the year, simply the entire year. What stands in the way of fulfilling this basic duty? CT General Statutes Section 12-130:

failure to send out any tax bill shall not invalidate the tax.

Take a gander at this fine piece of work. It almost makes sense... for a second. Then you read down further. "Ohh... there's what I need, I can click the little 'click here' link to see what I owe." Except that clicking on that little "click here" to look up current year taxes bring up simply, "page not found." So you are back at square one.

Translation?

We, the city tax office, have every right to totally F-up your taxes, duck behind the curtain for cinematic appeal, pull them out of a hat with a silver bunny, then go on vacation for the entire year... oh but please know that it is still your responsibility to pay your unknown sum by an unknown date in lieu of undocumented taxes.

There are few things in life that thoroughly and completely confuse me beyond any hope of comprehension, few things that appear totally broken by their mere nature. Congratulations city government, you just made the short list.

ice

I hiked up Ragged Mountain today. Just a small little mountain. Nothing like the big White Mountains I ran through as a kid in NH. But today, but this morning, it was enough to soothe a busy mind.

On arrival, I found I missed the hiking group I was to meet. Habit would have had me turn around and go home. I did not know the trails. I had never been here before. There was snow on the ground. But in lieu of a tiny little recurring dream, there was little choice but to climb.

I could say I hiked alone, but for a few friendly escorts to the top from a fluffy malamute husky and a very excited, very cold black lab. They struck me as a bit of an odd couple, the lab whimpering and squirming about, the husky quiet, observant, and paced. The talker and the walker. They made for good company, even if they were just using me for my sandwich.

The trail I took ended up running the ridge of the mountain, up the left, over the lake, then rounding up each side of the mountain to the top. I ran. I hiked. I breathed. I ran some more. I passed a couple others. As I passed the second ridge to the peak, I took a minute to absorb the scope of the snowy ground, barren trees, and quiet sky all around. It struck as me as quite strange how little of nature's sanctity we leave left in our busy lives. It was the last part, that quietness that I had forgotten the importance of, of the omnipresence and power in a mere moment of nature's silence. It came before me. It will last long after. I would have continued on with the rest of the groups I saw on the way up, but for the tranquility of the moment. It seemed only right to savor it well. Who knows if I should step on this path again? Opportunity beckoned.

I glanced over the rolling hills to Mount Southington and it's snow-covered trails. Then off the right to the UCHC. But it was not the hills that caught me this day, but kneeling down, the magnificence of the detail under my feet that took my breath away. There, frozen in one beautiful moment, a layer of water flowing over the rocks at cliff's edge, a thin layer of ice floating mere centimeters off the jagged surface. Hovering. Floating. Like a smooth, transparent skin to the rough and hard points of the rocks beneath. I pressed one section only to feel it creak and shatter under my touch. Caught in the moment, I stared at the random creation for some time. The intricacy of it's ice bubbles, the dryness of the rock beneath. Perhaps we are to this nature not so different anyway, hardened souls covered in a fragile skin or fragile souls isolated by the hardened stone we build around us? Just perhaps.

I spent some time at the top staring not out, but in.

Coming down the other side there were many points where the path got icy. Places where you could really fall hard. I found quickly that in such places you can walk softly and try to go around or you can set back and leap over with everything you have got. I walked softly coming up, so I chose to leap ahead coming down. Even if you don't know where you are going to land, sometimes just the taste of temporary flight is worth the consequence of any landing. I missed only a few times. That I would bleed a few fingers, but not break any legs was good enough a result.

True, in this hike there was much more, but where would we then end? The wonder of getting lost in the woods? The beauty of an uncertain destination? Or a magical reservoir, golden field, forest limo, or hiker hieroglyphics? Such are stories for another day. For today, on this day, what lies within, what we need without, truth be, is enough.