Foggy Contrasts

Foggy Contrasts My body tingled as I slid into the steaming, healing waters of the springs, feeling all at once restored and relaxed. I floated backward into the supporting buoyancy of the pools at Lava Hot Springs and closed my eyes, relishing the embrace of the heat. From above, the white clouds sent teeny-tiny snowballs cascading to the earth. They were not flakes, nor were they hailstones. It was, truly, a snowball storm and each little ball pinged against my skin with needle-sharp, icy coldness. Under the water, the world became a muffled place of fantasy. I could hear the scratchy scrunch-scrunch-scrunch of people walking along the smooth gravel bottom. All the voices became a harmonious humming of nonsensical sounds, no distinct words. Laughter sounded like fairies and bubbled through the atmosphere to where I floated quietly at peace with my thoughts. All the while, I had those stinging snowballs pelting me without pause. The next morning, we awoke to stunning crystalline clearness. The skies were blindingly smooth and bounced the dawning sun off the uninterrupted patches of white. Not a soul stirred as we walked to the little café for breakfast. All the sound in the world seemed to have dwindled down to only the crunch-crunch-crunch of our footfalls upon the snowy ground. From Lava, we drove further northward to Idaho Falls. I rounded the mountain near Pocatello and, literally, in a blink went from stunning clarity to fog so intense it was a sooty ash-black in some areas. I was startled by the difference and felt momentarily blinded and disoriented. It turned the entire world along the side of the road into a muted, mysterious scene, hiding entire cities and mountainsides from view. I found myself thinking about the people who had been submerged in that murkiness for, probably, most of the morning. I imagined they may have had the tendency to believe that this fog was everywhere. I grew fascinated by the scenery, how it had changed with the subdued effect of the fog. Usually, on this particular road, you can see for endless miles, stretches of farm lands and hay fields and potato crops. Now my line of vision was limited to near the edge of the road in some areas and in others a mere twenty-five feet or so beyond. I was curious by how the plant life was being affected by this bitter, frosty fog. Everything seemed so black and white, yet soft and blended confusingly. As I took a ghost-like side road through the country, I found myself entranced and wandering through something out of a fairy tale. The trees were all white, although it was not snowing. Every single thing was covered in a winter phenomenon called hoarfrost, which adds intriguing spiky texture to the world and looks incredibly sci-fi upon closer inspection. The one thing that struck me during this weekend was how "contrast" was at play in my life. I have come to realize that, for most of my life, I have been an "either-or" sort of gal. I have had difficulty incorporating the "and" into my life. Usually my life has looked more like the drive. One moment everything is strikingly clear. Next moment, I am plunged into a fog of discontent, confusion and begin wandering lost, wondering when things will begin to look like I remember them looking. Interestingly enough, on this particular trip, things never did look like I remember them looking. I left Idaho Falls in the evening and thus darkness narrowed my vision to only what my headlights could illuminate. I was never able to see very far beyond the road - beyond the width of the path upon which I trod. On both going and coming, my scope of vision was so limited and closed, I could only see what was directly in front of me. There were no other possibilities. I realized that life is full of possibilities that may become hidden to us in a fog of our own making. At other times, we may get so focused on our own path that we forget that there are other options out there unlike anything we can imagine. Living a life where the answer is always "either-or" but is never "and" leads to adventures missed and lessons passed and then the magic that is hiding in even such a mundane thing as a fog storm gets overlooked. ©Angie K. Millgate 01/13/08