For this reason a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire

Backside of the Teton Mountain Range; in western Wyoming.

Standing at 9,862 feet above sea level, the freezing temperatures accompany the swirling bursts of snow that graze my cheeks and fight my vision.

Clad in an old snowhat, mismatched gloved, two and a half jackets, my father’s bandanna, my brother’s goggles, and some snowpants two sizes too big, I strap into my board and kick off down the face of Fred’s Mountain.

Though the wind bites harder, I resist the urge to reach for my goggles. With my vision free, I feel as though everything I see is in its truest color, its truest form – the untouched powder, the shadows between the trees, the icy, stale-blue sky, lowering itself upon the many mountains that spread across the entire valley. I can see the air that hovers above the trail; cold and dense with the winter winds, slowly disappearing as the sun climbs higher. Finally, before I forget my own sense of direction, I let the world turn orange.

]So begins my winter break – away from school, away from finals. Given the stress of the last few months, I honestly would’ve welcomed any kind of break. Coffee, dancing, kit-kat… Yet I feel outright lucky to return to the Rockies, for as short a time as it may be. For the next two weeks, I’ll be strapping on my board at every possible moment. The cold air is my drug, and nothing satisfies my soul like a trip down the slopes. It empties my mind, slakes my thirst, and… cleans out my inbox (for lack of a better cross-reference).

On the hill, I succumb to speed. And because of this, I feel human. I feel driven. I feel as though I reach a new dream, a new state of mind – I satisfy my “itch for things remote.”

To all my friends and family- I hope that a piece of this winter break allows for the relaxation you need. Whatever inspires you, whatever drives you; whatever brings you a bit of peace.

(If you can’t think of anything, try this)

Discoveries.

For several years now, I have religiously been paying visit to the bookstore nearest my abode. Through the front doors and just left of the counter stands a towering wall of spiral notebooks, topped with a sign reading $0.65. The notebooks – seemingly untouched from the week before and continually dropping in price as if it were the End of the World – wait patiently for the return of their sole devoted customer, who will rescue a select few of them for the various intentions of thought-recording, dream-logging, list-keeping, date-tracking, and occasional paper-plane-making.

Though content with my purchases and excited that my supply of notebooks never seemed to diminish, I was recently informed of the reason behind the slump in notebook sales. There had been a widespread cessation in pen-to-paper journaling, and it seems that I had fallen drastically behind the times. “Blogging,” a friend explained to me. “It’s like having a journal on the Internet.”

I was a bit confused. After some research, I discovered that this “Internet” thing was quite the sensation and had been around for a considerably long time. As a result of its popularity, the activity of “blogging” was soon born, which was subsequently followed by the death of real-life journaling.Today, virtually all writing now takes place on a keyboard, and almost nothing is ever written down by hand, on actual sheets of paper. (This is more due to the fact that we have run out of trees to cut down.)

Though a bit dismayed and heartbroken, and only a short seven years late, I have decided to give blogging a chance; if I find it to be of equal or greater value than $0.65, then I will deem it a worthwhile venture.