A Walk With a Long Lost Lover

When years add to beauty

The day she arrived it started to snow. That is what is good about snow; it softens memories. The memories went far, and were full; as teenagers we’d climbed a few snow-peaked mountains together in the French alps, now and then roped together on tall magnificient rock faces and cliffs. We’d also been under glaciers, an extreme folly, and patterned our backs with pine needles, lying in the warm sun between lofty pine trees with welcoming forest aromas.

Today we no longer climbed, though the ropes that held us together in friendship were stronger than ever. Yasuko had always liked to be among trees, and I rediscovered the forest through her eyes. She smiled and spoke softly, just as she used to, and it fit into the quiet surroundings. Her hair was grey where it looked best, and her youthful charm had been replaced with something else, candor, years of smiles, years of other things, too, that gave her eyes depth; years of living. And she used to cover her mouth with her hand when she giggled. She did not now, but she still giggled, briefly.

We walked through the forest for hours, Yasuko and I, in these thick forests of Finland, with tall fir trees that stood serene through the seasons, our footprints the only ones that passed by their snowladen boughs.