Ghost on the Trail

            I took the pause of the continual snow Sunday evening to mean I should bundle up once more and make my way across campus to the freshly blanketed Rachel Carson Garden.  The winter quiet was broken up by the slush of the cars below and a lonely bird calling for a friend.  Even as fresh as the snowfall was on a lazy Sunday, indistinguishable shoeprints carried on in a constant stream.  Though the snow covered the dirt trampled trail the owners of these tracks still manage to avoid the buried garden and lawn on their roundabout way to the apartment stairs.  This adherence to the trail resulted in a Bermuda triangle where the crossways lay between Buhl’s lower entrance, the trail to the apartments, and the stairs to campus.

            In front of me stretched the vast, untouched snow covered lawn and garden.  I couldn’t decide whether to break the balance and wander from the trail.   On my previous visits I had taken to walking in a meandering loop in front of the garden nestled alongside the stairs to campus.  This portion of the lawn is in a brick alcove that protects it from the piercing wind.  When I stand there I almost get too warm for my heavy jacket and thick scarf.  Almost. 

            But yesterday, unlike those shoeprints so sure of their trail, I hesitated from my normal, weaving path.  Had I been equipped with the proper snow attire I would not have thought twice about falling backward into the pristine blanket that lay before me.  I might not have made an actual snow angel but rather just lay in the muffled silence for a while.  Maybe I would build a mound like castle to brighten the more observant passerby’s day. 

            Then I began to wonder if people had noticed my shoeprint’s break from the trail on previous visits as I noticed their consistency in steps even without a visible trail to follow.  Would somebody stop and wonder why there was a looping labyrinth tracked out on the hidden lawn?  Had they noticed my presence left behind before?  Would they, too, break from the regular trail to see what I had found so interesting?  To see if I had left anything behind?   Or was everyone so hurried in his or her morning routine, head bent against the self-created wind, to notice the alcove they passed everyday?

            Well, they had the opportunity in last week’s snow to notice my meandering trail.  Where I had tripped on a hidden rock and stumbled, leaving a snow crater in my wake.  But this week I decided differently.  I kept to the trail, my shuffled walk mixed with the slew of shoeprints.  The blanket of snow covering the lawn and garden snuggled in the alcove remained fresh.  And this week I became as much of a ghost as any of the other travelers along this path.