Ahh, fog!

Have I said it? I love fog! Not the grimy, discolored fog that is bad to breath, and happens during temperature inversions, but the clean, white, healthy kind that can almost make your skin damp when you walt through it.

This post is belated, but I first started thinking about it on Thursday morning, when I walked to school. It must have been almost exactly 32 degrees outside, because I would occasionally see a snowflake, and then a tiny rain drop a few seconds later. For the most part, though, it was just beautiful, comfortable, breathable fog that made the morning seem much brighter than it actually was.

Fog takes me back to Vermont and Maine, where I served a mission for my church. Honestly, for the first few months of my mission, when it was winter in Vermont, I almost forgot what colors looked like. I would wake up and walk outside, a brave venture when it is -20 or -30 degrees Fahrenheit, and look at the woods surrounding my house. The maple trees, millions of them, were gray and barren, or gray and covered in white snow. Huge white snow drifts built up in intricate patterns wherever there were no trees, casting equally intricate shadows in the low morning light. A clear day meant that the gray clouds were a few thousand feet above the ground, and a normal day meant walking through the clouds wherever we went. Occasionally the clouds would clear at night, presenting a beautiful black and white star canopy featuring the Milky Way Galaxy, so thick you could drink it if you could only reach high enough. During the day, though, gray and white prevailed. Cars would splash through slush in their cars, spraying gray road grime on any shop, sign, house (or pedestrian!) within a half dozen yards of the street. The buildings farther from the road usually had wood siding or shingles for their exterior finish. The shingles and siding would freeze so deeply that little moisture droplets trapped in the wood would surface as a layer of translucent ice crystals, making any color of shingle or siding appear... gray. As if it weren't enough to live in a world of black, white, and gray, the chilling fog added a final touch of surrealism that could not be denied.

Fog takes me back seven years, to a time when I went hiking alone at night in the woods of upstate New York. I wanted to find a place to think. Armed with a small mag-light, I confronted the pine-needle, root, and rock-strewn trail. With each step, my strange surroundings intrigued me more. I saw glimpses of stars through the tiny gaps between the tall trees, I noticed that there was a full moon. I gradually descended the hill until I came to a meadow. I entered the meadow. I heard a pack of coyotes howling in the distance, or at least I chose to think they were in the distance - they could have been at the top of an adjacent hill. As I entered the field, I observed a bizarre phenomenon - the ground, though not level, was uniformly covered with a six-foot-thick blanket of fog. Thick fog. I could extend my hand arm's length in front of me, and see fog between my head and my hand. Coyotes. Standing in the fog, I could only see about eight feet in front of me, three yards at most. Tilting my head upward, I could see a clear black sky pulsating with stars, as if the fog were not there at all. Disregarding caution, I followed the faint trail through the forty-acre field alone, holding my light above my head, shining it down on a spot ten feet ahead of me. Though I couldn't see that far, I thought it best to try to illuminate unknown objects before stumbling upon them.

I stopped in the middle of the field and looked around. I could not see where I was going, or where I came from. Though I take insights from the scriptures, and firmly believe in Jesus, I have felt a similar way about life many times. How did I get to where I am now, and how will I get to the next place I want to be? Such is the challenge of faith - I find myself constantly needing to take action despite having imperfect information.

I resumed my walking, and eventually made it through the field, then around the edge of the field, then over some hills, and then back to camp. I heard the coyotes intermittently that whole night. Coyotes, though they are scavengers and not prone to aggression with humans, have something about their call that can be quite unsettling to anyone who hears. I usually don't mind the sound, but when walking alone at night, it brings different things to mind. In this case, it added the perfect (if not slightly disturbing) ambient sound to accent my memory.

While I don't remember finding a place to sit and think, as I had planned, I had a few hours, or at least most of an hour, to contemplate on God's artwork. How amazing it is that God can take such commonplace media, such as trees, tall grass, fog, and coyotes, and make something so abstract and beautiful!

I could go on, but I have no more time to write. No time to write about the lighthouses, mountains, meadows, and country roads, all covered in fog, that create such pregnant moments and illustrate so many moods... You'll just have to watch for those places on your own and see what I mean.