Snow and Spice

My training plan called for 7 miles of hilly running this morning. The local district called off school as plows dealt with the 7 inches of snow that had accumulated overnight. Roads were slushy, but footing was firm, and traffic was lighter than usual. As I delighted in some pristine winter scenery for the first time in over a month, I also quietly savored the fact that this was not the stupid run that I still intend to avoid during the remaining days of winter.

College of the Holy Cross, Worcester MA

This morning's seven-mile slog (running in slush is vaguely akin to walking uphill in mud) was hardly my fastest spin through Worcester's hills and neighborhoods, yet it served up an unexpected and marvelous gift from a hitherto unremarkable landmark. Just after clearing one of Worcester's many bizarre intersections, I pass a pie factory, which is typically devoid of visible activity. Yet today the whole area smelled of nutmeg. The contrast couldn't have been more jarring– cold breezes whisking snowflakes through air suffused with the aroma of a tropical spice. I certainly ran a little faster, motivated by the idea of indulgently adding some nutmeg to my post-run bowl of oatmeal, strawberries, and cranberries. (It's delicious, by the way!)

In light of the musings that inspired yesterday's post, this strong encounter with the ordinary shaped my day; I engaged in more small talk than usual, sensed some sharper focus in hours of researching and indexing information on a variety of postdoctoral fellowships, and felt a little less preoccupied with unearthing radically significant insights from daily minutiae. Rather, as I did with my camera during a slushy seven-minute walk to the office this morning, I took in scenes as a whole, while also appreciating the simple (and also majestic) confluence of their myriad components. Who knew that snow and nutmeg could do so much?