Almost every winter, in Condon, there’s a bout of freezing fog. It’s like having snow, without the bad roads. The fog comes in and freezes thick on everything. The trees get a flocking, all the dry grasses turn white and fat, barbed wire softens. It’s beautiful.
Bill and I went walking Christmas morning. The freezing fog turned me grey. When we walked the day before, it was sunny and I regretted not having my sunglasses. This time I had them. Just in case. Maybe they kept my eyes from turning frosty.
Walking in the cold like that is a giddy kind of challenge. It woke me up and my face hurt and, when I took off my gloves to snap a picture, my hands got so cold I didn’t think I’d get them warm again. I wondered if we were a little bit stupid, going out in it. No one else was out, it being Christmas morning, it being crazy cold. But we did our full walk, up by the golf course, the old granary, past the fairgrounds and the cemetery, to the airport, then back by way of the new granaries.
Walking around Condon always makes me want to write. It’s that kind of place.
When I was a kid, the three or four days before Christmas Eve were the longest days in the world. Time got fat and slow and sluggy. How would I ever stand the days, the hours, before it was here?
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