Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

40 / Annie DillardIt is winter proper; the cold weather, such as it is, has come tostay. I bloom indoors in the winter like a forced forsythia; I comein to come out. At night I read and write, and things I have neverunderstood become clear; I reap the harvest of the rest of theyear’s planting.Outside, everything has opened up. Winter clear-cuts and reseedsthe easy way. Everywhere paths unclog; in late fall andwinter, and only then, can I scale the cliff to the Lucas orchard,circle the forested quarry pond, or follow the left-hand bank ofTinker Creek downstream. The woods are acres of sticks; I couldwalk to the Gulf of Mexico in a straight line. When the leaves fallthe striptease is over; things stand mute and revealed. Everywhereskies extend, vistas deepen, walls become windows, doors open.Now I can see the house where the Whites and the Garretts livedon the hill under oaks. The thickly grown banks of Carvin’s Creekwhere it edges the road have long since thinned to a twiggy haze,and I can see Maren and Sandy in blue jackets out running thedogs. The mountains’ bones poke through, all shoulder and knoband shin. All that summer conceals, winter reveals. Here are thebirds’ nests hid in the hedge, and squirrels’ nests splotched allover the walnuts and elms.Today a gibbous moon marked the eastern sky like a smudgeof chalk. The shadows of its features had the same blue tone andlight value as the sky itself, so it looked transparent in its depths,or softly frayed, like the heel of a sock. Not too long ago, accordingto Edwin Way Teale, the people of Europe believed that geeseand swans wintered there, on the moon’s pale seas. Now it issunset. The mountains warm in tone as the day chills, and a hotblush deepens over the land. “Observe,” said da Vinci, “observein the streets at twilight, when the day is cloudy, the lovelinessand tenderness spread on the faces of men and women.” I have