I'm baaack!

And I'm rested but feeling the pinch of the coming weeks of work before I can take another day (or week) off. The snow was a beautiful sparkling expanse of endless white and the banks of the river edged with ice while the river rushed by in frothy spangled streamers of liquid light and dark. A stand of white pillared aspens naked in the pallid light marched off into the distance and I wandered among them swishing through the snow-covered drifts of seasons of leaves after a breakfast of fresh fruit and hot chocolate delivered to my door every morning. Another cabin stood nearby with a gravel walk that ended at the main house a half mile up the path and no one stopped by during my stay except to deliver breakfast and silently whisk the empty tray away while I walked.

It was difficult leaving but a growing sense of longing for the familiar confines of my own walls and books and furniture brought me back with a sigh of relief. The silence here is not as deep or as all pervasive but it's home and I'm comfortable here. I'll return to the cabin next year, maybe in late spring when the scents of warming earth and budding aspens are as intoxicating as the smoky smell of golden aspens quaking in a faint wind like Midas's coins, and will probably be just as glad to return home as I will be to arrive at the secluded cabin. There's nothing like travel to remind me of how much I enjoy being here among my things and sleeping in my bed where books lie beside me in tumbled disarray.

The silence was soothing and I luxuriated in a candlelit bathtub full of scented foam rising on wisps of steam with a mug of hot chocolate and a book or lying back in the warm waters while music swirled through the air to soothe and excite me in turns. It was a dream vacation that I will dream again and again, looking forward to the long nights and solitary walks as much as to the writing and reading without limits or restraint, often falling asleep with a book in my lap to awaken and pick up where I left off. There is so much to look forward to experiencing as though it is the first time and it will be a first each time.

That is all. Disperse.