Yearning to Get it Back

Snow whirled outside shrouding shrubs, steps, stone walls, and cars as I snuggled in before the TV and a cozy fire. In a gentle rise and fall of white, snow smooths over life’s hurry and softens distinctions between Nature’s creations and those of man. This was the winter I’d yearned for, the kind of winter my parents recalled from their youth when Dad skated on ponds frozen for months and Mom rode her sled from her backyard through the woods and into the fields beyond. Given the turmoil of world events, I welcomed the escape of snow and a movie.

Dave had gone to bed, and I was watching “The Adam Project.” Time travel, past and future co-existing, and the deceased lending a hand are not Dave’s thing. They are absolutely mine. 

Onscreen, two versions of Adam, the protagonist, have traveled back in time in search of their father. Twelve-year-old Adam is a scrawny smart-aleck who is bullied at school. He is thrilled to meet his 40-year-old self – Ryan Reynolds - who is muscular, handsome, equipped with futuristic weapons, and still a smart aleck. Their father is a professor and inventor killed two years before– in his sons’ experience - in a car accident. Yet he is the only one who can solve the chaos of the present.

When the boys find him, he is giving a lecture, cracking jokes with his students, his hair disheveled, his sport coat rumpled. His sons are transfixed. There he is. It’s a regular day at work, and the man they have ached for is… so alive.

At that, my throat tightened as I stifled a sob, not because of the scene so much as the pang I felt in imagining the poignancy of seeing Mom and Dad or my grandmother, Byeo, once more. I could feel it; the gift of getting that chance again. To see Mom on her bed, perusing the pages of her beloved Majesty magazine. To have Dad take my hand to show me an addition to his antique toy collection. To see Byeo in her blue robe flipping silver dollar pancakes on the stove. Nothing special… just the extraordinary blessing of ordinary times. 

Years ago, I clipped out and saved a Family Circus comic by Bil Keane. The strip, in full color, depicted the father gesturing to his mother, wife, and daughter to stand closer together for a picture. The caption read something like, “I want a photo of all my girls.” Appearing as white outlines next to “his girls” were the women who’d come before… the flapper, the suffragette, the Victorian, and so on… a sustaining line of women, hand in hand, leading up to Dolly, the little girl of the family. The present can be hard, and the thought, the hope, of ancestral support is comforting. 

How long ago did that cartoon appear? Which of my journals holds it within its pages? I want to find it. There are days when I want to know that my women, the grandmothers and great-grandmothers, are near, outlined in white or in whatever form they might have on the Other Side. It will be a challenge to leaf through 51 journals on that hunt. I know I’ll bog down reading entries that inspire smiles, tears, or gratitude. It could take days to find that clipping while I relive whatever transpired in whatever year, on whatever day. I know my chest will ache with yearning for some of those times. 

And here I am now, at the dining room table in February of 2026, with a snowy woodland vista beyond the window and Dave rustling papers as he prepares our taxes. Some future day, I’ll come across this piece, and yearn, with my heart aching, to get this moment back.  

 

  

 

 

3:00 PM Curse

Is it smart, in mid-winter, to set out for a hike in late afternoon? No, but Dave and I love our leisurely mornings, snug in a sunny spot on our green couch, sipping coffee while scrolling through emails or practicing Italian with Duolingo. Then, there are bills, laundry, projects, and phone calls, and time passes, ever more quickly the older we get. As a result, plans for a brisk walk around noon get pushed forward, and as dark settles in, we’re still out in the woods. 

So, I was mindful when we set out last month around 3:00ish. We should know, by now, to be wary of that time. 

But this is the winter I have been yearning for! Snow deep on the ground, trees black-ink-bare, and the tops of ancient thrown walls mere stepping stones through white-washed woods up to a ridge. Lasting cold that freezes ponds and rivers. Lacy patterns etched in the snow by deer, skunk, fox, and coyote searching for food. Icicle daggers glinting from gutters. 3:00 or not, we were bound to go. 

While we walked, Dave nibbled pistachio nuts and, with thumb and forefinger, flipped the shells, striving to land them on the yellow line down the middle of the road. “Yeah! Got one! Check it out!” 

As we approached a hill, we noticed tire tracks carved into the snowbank flanking the street; someone had parked there since last night’s storm. Thankfully, hunting season was over, and we were curious, drawn by the solid set of boot prints that led through a break in the stone wall.

“Want to follow them for a bit?” Dave asked.

“Sure. I’m up for it.”  

We’ve explored these woods before and know where the stream widens and splashes in a frothy tumble over a series of waterfalls before flowing into the reservoir beyond. The water was running fast and high after the autumn rains and recent snow melt, so we expected this jaunt to be quick, curtailed when we reached the stream. But after brushing through thorny brambles and clambering over fallen branches, we saw that someone – our boot-shod leader perhaps – had thrown down two wide planks to form a bridge. He or she had come prepared.

“Eleanor would love this,” said Dave as we crossed over. Our granddaughter is ever curious and loves an adventure. She’d be bright-eyed and animated as she postulated theories about Mr. Boots and whatever his hike might have held. 

Came a point where the boot prints angled toward the reservoir, and it was time to head home. We branched off in what felt to be the right direction. It was still light, but I was mindful of the hour as I recalled a walk on Jump Hill years ago with our wolfish Alaskan Malamute, Kodiak. I’d heard the trail there was about a mile long, just right since we were late in starting, again around 3:00. 

Turned out, I had the distance wrong, and when the sun set and the painted trail blazes on trees disappeared in the darkness, we were too far along to double back. We’d stumbled on, gingerly feeling forward with sneakered feet before each step in order to avoid rocks, wetlands, and downed tree limbs. Periodically I’d ask Dave, “Are you nervous?” His reassuring answer always calmed me, but I was on the town’s Conservation Commission and kept imagining search parties and humiliating headlines in the Easton Courier: “Commissioner lost in the woods.” Ultimately, however, we were able to situate ourselves using Orion’s stars, our sense of where the sun went down, and Kodiak’s instincts. We vowed that from then on, we would bring water and a compass on every hike. 

That wasn’t the only time we turned a walk into a foolhardy adventure. Once while staying at the Mohonk Mountain House, Dave and I set out for a stroll. Need I tell you the time? Yes, around 3:00. Did we bring water and a compass? No. We skirted the lake, enjoying the sound of cheery youthful voices above us and out of sight beyond a wall of tumbled boulders. A painted yellow arrow on a nearby rock pointed upwards, an invitation. We grinned at each other: a short scramble would add rock climbing – which has a nice risky ring to it - to our list of Mohonk forays. 

For a while, it was fun, a wonderful challenge to find toeholds and reach for the next rock, always led upwards by occasional yellow arrows and the chatter of young voices ahead. But the afternoon was passing; it was dusky; we were relying more on feel than sight; and again, it was too late to turn back. Suddenly the kids’ commentary stopped short, and we heard a girl say, “No F-ing way I’m doing that.”

Not a good sign. 

By then, we’d been calling back and forth, and Dave yelled, “What is it?”

“Ladders! A series of ladders up through a narrow crevice in the rocks! It’s pitch black in there!” 

“Is there another way around?” 

“Nope. We saw signs early on for the ‘Lemon Squeezer.’ This must be it. It’s gonna be tight.” As we clambered closer, we could hear the muffled grunts, curses, and exclamations punctuating their efforts.  

It was full-on dark when we reached the Lemon Squeezer, and the kids had kindly, wisely, waited above the crevice and shone their phone flashlights through the opening at the top to ease our ascent. 

The wooden ladders were steep and rustic. Head back, I gazed up the rock face; it would be quite a climb. Still, I knew we were closing in on the road near Skytop, a stone tower on the highest point overlooking the lake. The kids were waiting for us, and we would not spend a chilly night huddled in the shelter of a ledge, a recurring mental image I’d tried to block earlier. So, as I grasped the rungs and started up, I was exhilarated more than afraid. And you can imagine the triumphant babble of Lemon Squeezer survivors when we met up with our fellow adventurers and all but skipped down the dark road to the Mountain House together.  

So, on this recent January day, I was mindful; 3:00ish start times had proved tricky. Also, having reveled in spotting bobcats and bears in our yard, I had no wish for a close encounter, although these days, I worry more about dangers posed by humans than our woodland friends. Still, I picked up a sturdy stick to wield, just in case. 

Dave was confident we were on course to meet up with a familiar trail, but I thought we’d been angling too deep into the woods for that. Perhaps I haven’t mentioned that we’d brought neither water nor compass with us. So much for that vow.  

“If the trail’s not over that ridge,” I said, pointing to a stone wall that crested the rise ahead, “we should turn back so we can still see to follow our tracks.” 

The snow was deep enough that the uphill climb was laborious, and our exchanges were turning testy. 

Suddenly Dave said, “There’s the road!” and gestured to the left.

I scanned the expanse of snow, rock outcrops, and trees and saw nothing promising. “How do you know?” I said, my voice verging on snarky.

“I saw car lights.” 

Well, I hadn’t… but he was right. We tromped further, met up with the road, and were home before dark. Perhaps the 3:00 curse has been broken.