Today was magnificent as "break up" rushed in at 80 degrees Fahrenheit under a blazing sun. The highlight of the day was eating a great sub sandwich before a miraculous change out of snow to summer tires on a Jeep Cherokee given as a gift from a Korean brother who decided to go back to New Jersey to be with family.
From that time after the sandwich, the beautiful mystery world of my arctic dreams came back to me. I saw ice flows on the Chena River. Later on as the tires were being changed out a big burly biker came in with his leather vest on and wrap around sun glasses and said to me, "Man it is 90 F in the sunshine; it's unbelievable!" then he held out a big box of ice cream bars and said, "Here have one. The weather is perfect for ice cream." The garage worker came into the cashiers desk and said' "I'm sweating just standing here. I wish it would drop to -40 right now!"
It was all part of a social mind frame I know as that "Arctic Thinking" which outsiders just can't get a grip on. I finally felt at home and drove off to go for a bike ride in the back wilderness under the blazing 8:00 PM sun shine. There on a silent hill I heard what I had been waiting 11 years to hear and that is the sound of a robin calling. I had dreams of the call of this beautiful bird and have remembered it as the first spring bird to hear during the first week of May each year; however to day is April 30th and the first time I have ever heard the robin so early and the first time I have ever felt summer temperatures when just a few weeks ago I was skate skiing on a solid river.
How completely wonderful and I could lift my heart to the warm sun in the perfect blue sky and say, "Thank you God for being so good to me all the time even through the valley of the shadow of death to this day on the edge of an image from heaven sent to earth."
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