The Meadow

I stumbled on a branch and crashed into the snowy embankment, frustration over-taking my thoughts.

“What kind of moron goes on a nature walk in November!?!” I screamed out, my words piercing into the echoes of the night.

“The same moron who desperately needed to escape the turmoil and noise of her family” I laughingly answered myself.

Just hours before I had been nestled by a fire sipping on a hot toddy and sitting with my thoughts, but then Avi whirled in with her wild eyes and crazy stories, she thrived on confrontation. Especially with our father and no doubt the living-room would become a battleground soon, as she had just started up yet another conversation about politics- an area that they would never see eye to eye on. I hastily snatched up my things and grabbed a sweater, with that I headed out the door. I was gone, just like that before I too was dragged into the fray.

I walked through the trees, over a hill and into a large open meadow before I even realized that the snow was falling or that I was now lost. What direction had I come from? I was flanked in trees on all sides, which tree covered path is the one I came from?

“Lost in the woods and it’s all Avis’ fault” I sighed.

I couldn’t deal anymore so I just slumped down into the snow bank and had a good cry.

“Why couldn’t she give it a break, just let dad have his way for once?”

My questions echoed across the meadow, settling into the quiet of the snow surrounding me and now here I was lost in the woods at dark, sitting in the silence waiting for a sign and wallowing in my feelings once again.

I waited for hours it seems, walking around that meadow looking for a sign. As the darkness set in I could sense a presence. I wasn’t the only one in these woods and I could feel it, prickly and cold at the back of my neck the feelings of fear made me tremble.

Suddenly a branch snapped on one of the trees behind me and I lit out of that meadow like a bat outta hell. I could hear my assailant behind me whooshing and swooshing. He was clearly faster and more agile than me, and as I crashed through branches I never slowed down, my heart was racing and my muscles were flinching as the tiny twigs ripped my skin and the fresh snow crunched under my feet.

I ran as fast as my legs could carry me, sprinting for what seemed like miles and when I reached the top of the relentless hill that I was climbing I dared to look back, however briefly, and try and catch a glimpse of the monster following me. With ice in my veins I turned, ready for battle, only to find a stately old owl swooping up from the meadow, prey in jaw, hooting in triumph.

A monster had not been chasing me after all, the tree branch that I had heard cracking was just an owl taking flight in the cold winters night. On the plus side from this hill I had scaled so quickly in my fear I could see our cabin, lights on inside smoke billowing from the chimney. I ran down the other side grateful for my owl guide!! She had shown me the way home, through my fear and my internal GPS.

Inside our cabin the ruckus of disagreement has died down and my family is playing cards by the fire, sipping hot toddies and no one has even noticed that I was gone.