My city and I woke up this morning to light snow covering a thin sheet of ice covering our roads and sidewalks.
It had rained yesterday, so the all that water had thinly frozen over making for a city-wide skating rink.
Slippery roads are dangerous - car accidents and people falling - it’s not great.
I thought about this while taking slow steps this morning.
To walk intentionally on the land, in this case with a desire not to slip and fall, requires a great deal of presence. Letting the mind wander too much makes us overlook the subtle feel of shifting or cracking ice beneath our boots, and in that split second we can either catch ourselves or fall.
The ‘dangerous’ warning is almost necessary in a land where presence with ourselves, our feet and our immediate environment is fleeting.
A teenager walked in front of me on the slippery sidewalk and embraced the slip and slide, trusting his muscles, his knees, his balance and engaged with his playful act.
I, on the other hand, walked gingerly and carefully.
I’ve slipped on ice before and fallen. Without thinking about it, I’ve just gotten up and laughed at how awkward a bumbling fall is.
So, what else are we warned against in our lives, because it is dangerous?
Is it actually dangerous, or is that we aren’t, in our minds, bodies, hearts and feelings, where we are meant to be - here and now?
What if whenever and where-ever we walked in our world, we walked with the same sentiment and awareness as when we walk on icy roads?
You what isn’t slippery? The Earth.
Our backyards and parks and our forests don’t collect water like concrete roadways do. So it doesn’t freeze over and slip and fall risks are lower.
But concrete became our definition of civilized efficiency with transport and to it we have stuck in almost every region across the world.
It’s a little known happening that roadways like the ones we know today came from war-times. To move tanks, light armoured vehicles (LAVs) and platoons efficiently across regions. Now we use them to commute to our jobs and keep the supply chain going.
I wondered about roads this morning, because that is where my feet were, trying not to slip. I dream about living amongst trees in a home with beautiful earthy aesthetic speckled with stone pathways. There are concrete roads for friends who want to come visit from corners of the land, but it isn’t prevalent any more.
Some older concrete roads in this dream of mine have given way to roots of trees and bright yellow dandelions.
To me, this is civilization. Taking aspects and ideas of our progress and returning to the soil in the timespan of dripping water.
Stay warm all!