Mystery Date

I met a man in the woods last February. We were the same height, and if he'd had eyes, ours would have been at the same level. The man first caught my attention as Cora was well ahead of me on the trail and she started to bark. She was a full two switch backs ahead of me, so I didn't know the source of her concern. Could it be snowshoers? She hates sports with poles or sticks! A man with dark glasses and a hat? I wondered what it must be like to be a dog, coming upon a human sized man who refused to move or make an expressions.

She was terrified, yet wanted to protect me, so she circled it and barked with her tail between her legs. I came up behind her, walked past her and around it. She then started to lunge at the gigantic base and seemed stunned to find it cold and inanimate. This man made of snow was an enigma to my curly-tailed barkerella.

I put my hand on the middle, medium sized ball, it's belly while she watched. I kept it there and with my other hand invited her to touch it too. She slowly skittered over and sniffed like a plunger popping out of a basin.

I found some branches of white pine that had broken off in a recent heavy snow storm. I picked off two needle clusters for eye brows, and broke on twig in to five pieces: eyes, nostrils and a mouth. I then found two more, longer, wind blown branches and made them arms.

This set Cora to barking all over again. The face, as you can see above was ambiguous; friend or foe?

Then I decided to hug the snow man and hum a little song (probably something from Guys and Dolls, as I had been a Hot Box Girl in a High School production at at times like this those choruses tend to rise up). I kept hugging with my eyes shut to see what Cora would do. Much to my amazement, she decided to join the hugfest and jumped up on her hind legs, paws at the base of the snowman's neck and licked my face while sniffing his. Then, as is want with Cora the Explorah, she heard a squirrel, mole, vole or shrew and went bounding off the packed path into some under brush.

I was alone on a date with a man made of snow. That was the second to last date I've been on within a year. The last was this fall, a one and done meal at a near by cafe.

Four dates in almost three years, five if you count my five-of-a-kind (equals white pine) eyebrow friend above.  Recently one friend suggested I meet a friend of hers. So maybe it will be six dates in three years.....we'll see; play it as it lays ~ to go all Didion on it.

For now, I'm embracing the relentless snow, the magic of each moment and the optimism of never knowing what might be just around the next corner, while thinking fondly of a man made of snow who I met in the woods last February.

Good night, winter weary and dateless romantics, G'night!