01.19.14  Freezing fog is predicted for the entire week ahead.  Sometimes, that means there is lovely hoarfrost on trees and branches, or a thin layer of ice on the roads.  This morning, it’s just fog.  It’s not like the fog which “comes on little cat feet”, as Carl Sandburg describes in his poem.  That’s the sort of fog they have in San Francisco where it playfully rolls over hills and dances around the Golden Gate Bridge.  Nor is it like the coastal fog along the Oregon coast with the dramatic roar of crashing surf, hidden behind the dripping mist.  And, it’s not even like London’s cold shroud which descends upon you at dusk on a winter’s night.  Fog there is always “literary” somehow, and even if you are walking deep in Queen’s Wood, amongst the ancient woodland of twisted oak trees and tangled vines, the path will pop you out to a busy street where people are rushing home on buses and bikes, shops are bustling, and there’s a frenzy of community.

Our fog does not play nor excite.  It just is.  Still, quiet, and empty.  Nothing moves.  It’s as if the sand falling in an hourglass suddenly stops; the earth holds still in her orbit.  No currents of air to move weather in or out.  Nothing is happening at all.  I find myself stepping slowly and lightly when I walk out to the edge of the motionless lake, not wanting to disturb the utter silence.  I wonder if the animals feel the same way, bedded down in the brush or deep in a den.  I only hear, but can’t see, the Canada geese circling overhead, searching for open water on this bitter cold morning.  I look forward to nesting back in my warm and cozy house for the remainder of this slow moving gray day.  But, I know there is something of the sacred in the stillness of this foggy morning.