A Moment Under the Hemlock

Image created by Author using Nano Banana II

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Shivering beneath my winter coat, I stopped and stood under cover of the hemlock towering above me. Silence was palpable all around. A pale moon hung crooked against the vast, midnight sky, and I held my breath as I waited, listening whether anything, other than me, might be conscious and aware at that late hour.

Hearing nothing, I relaxed my lungs and watched as a misty plume of air escaped my mouth and rose like a weary ghost to haunt snowflakes suspended in mid-air.

I turned to look behind me and noticed how my footsteps led to where I stood; deep boot-shaped indentions in an otherwise smooth past. The expanse of landscape ahead of me was pure and pristine, as new fallen snow caught the light of a streetlamp and sparkled like liquid glitter.

The tall pine stretched high above, its wide limbs covered with so much winter that my spot underneath felt like a cozy den. Off to the right, a faint glow spread out from the kitchen window, indicating Mom had left the light on.

I reveled in the stillness, content that nothing was required of me — no words, smiles, or reactions. For a moment, the world seemed to be enough. I felt united with the universe, satisfied to be part of something so spectacular that even this cold, dark silence filled me with awe.

I thought how wonderful if I could traverse time instead of places; how, if I followed the footsteps that lay behind me, they would lead back to the driveway of my past where I’d be wrapped in the arms of an old boyfriend, his car filled with 80’s love ballads and powerful cologne, as he held onto me like life itself. Or, if I stayed facing the future and walked through the back door, the warmth of home would hem in around me as I felt measureless love unfolding for the woman sound asleep on her couch and the old man, head dropped and snoring in his recliner, while actors performed inside their television set for no one.

Even back then, intuition warned my future would lure me from this place until I was so far removed that home felt like a child’s favorite, forgotten fairy tale.

Standing under the stately hemlock pine that night, I knew it was now, and nothing would ever be the same again. I knew it was then, and I was just a child who collected pinecones and played in the dirt without thought or worry. I knew it was never, and everything I experienced had just been a dream. I knew it was someday, and the hemlock was gone before it ever took root and sprouted.

The quiet fortitude of my den might never have existed, for no one else was there to taint the sanctity of a perfect, peaceful night. None other than me could foretell how, years later, it would flicker between the solidarity of memory and figment of imagination.

I decided the snowflakes would be my stars, but they were falling faster now which meant time was in a hurry to get someplace else.

I put my head down to brace for the wind, trudged across the sidewalk and into the house. I left that perfect moment to linger in now and never while I lived my life around it, knowing someday I would revisit it with the solemnity of one who stands before an open coffin to say a final goodbye.

My life has never been so splendid as that night when the moon watched me realize what I’d been given, and all I could offer in return were tears from someplace warm and deep inside.