"Quiet" (Image & Text Copyright Wylddane Productions, LLC)
Ethan stepped onto the porch of the wee cedar cottage, the February air crisp enough to sting his lungs awake. Winter had loosened its grip just slightly...a pause, not a surrender. Behind him, Bear, his hulking Siberian Husky, released a low, vibrating woof that carried both impatience and ceremony. Morning had arrived, and it demanded movement.
Perched atop the neatly stacked woodpile, Isabel...the orange-and-white tabby who ruled the household with serene authority...squinted out at the white-washed world, unimpressed but attentive.
“It’s a February thaw,” Ethan said, tugging his parka zipper up to his chin. “Don’t get sentimental.”
They set off toward the frozen lake, following a narrow trail pressed smooth by weeks of ritual walks. Bear took the lead, paws landing with a steady, metronomic confidence, his nose sweeping the air as if reading a newspaper written in scent...pine sap, fox sleep, the mineral hush of cold stone. Isabel followed with surprising elegance, hopping from fallen log to dry patch, her citrus-bright coat flaring like a small sun against the forest’s grayscale calm.
Halfway down the trail, Bear stopped so abruptly Ethan nearly collided with him. A low rumble built in the dog’s chest as a massive porcupine waddled into view, quills glinting faintly, utterly unconcerned.
Bear reconsidered his life choices and retreated to the safety of Ethan’s legs.
Isabel, however, puffed herself to twice her size and delivered a sharp, declarative hiss...the kind meant to settle disputes without escalation. The porcupine blinked, paused as if weighing the situation, then angled politely back into the brush.
“My hero,” Ethan laughed, scratching Isabel behind the ears as she resumed her dignified stride.
The lake appeared through the trees just as the sun broke free of the cloud cover, turning the ice into hammered silver. Bear rediscovered his courage and slid joyfully across the frozen surface, a great fuzzy comet skidding toward nowhere in particular. Isabel claimed a sun-warmed granite boulder and began her morning grooming with priestly devotion.
Ethan leaned against a cedar trunk and breathed. February, he thought, wasn’t really a month...it was a bridge. A place where the world practiced being still, then quietly remembered how to move again.
The silver light didn’t last.
By midmorning, the sky bruised into a deep, leaden purple. Wind began threading through the hemlocks, its low moan pulling Bear close to Ethan’s thigh.
“Time to head back,” Ethan said, the words nearly stolen by the rising gale.
They had just re-entered the denser timber when Isabel froze atop a stump. Her tail bushed out, every line of her body angled forward...not toward home, but toward a fresh crossing of tracks that cut cleanly across their earlier path.
Ethan knelt, pulse loud in his ears.
The prints were enormous. Nearly four inches wide. Perfectly round. No claw marks. The back pad showed three clean lobes.
“Cougar,” he whispered.
The storm chose that moment to arrive.
Snow swept sideways, erasing the woods into a white, breathing wall. Visibility collapsed. Sound folded inward.
“Stay close,” Ethan said.
Bear moved forward without hesitation now, instincts rising like an old song remembered. He tracked their path beneath the new powder, steady and sure. Isabel slipped behind Ethan, a silent ember against the storm’s gray. Every few yards, she chirped once...sharp, precise...anchoring them together.
Then Bear stopped.
Not growling. Not barking.
Watching.
The cougar stood on the ridge above them, perfectly still. Tawny fur dusted with snow. Golden eyes calm, reflective...not hungry, not hostile. Just present.
For a long breath, they regarded one another: man, dog, cat, and the quiet sovereign of the woods.
The cougar blinked once. Lowered its head. Stepped back into the timber and was gone...leaving only silence and the soft collapse of snow from a branch.
Ethan exhaled the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
When the porch light finally glowed through the storm, relief moved through him like warmth returning to numb fingers. Inside, the cottage welcomed them with stillness and cedar-scented air. Ethan fed the stove until the fire caught and bloomed, then set water to boil.
Bear stretched across the threshold, a guardian at rest. Isabel climbed to her rafter perch, eyes half-closed but alert.
Coffee steamed. The storm raged.
And the day, already full, settled gently into memory.
* * * * * * * * * *
"That’s what winter is: an exercise in remembering how to still yourself, then how to come pliantly back to life again.” ~Ali Smith
Outside my window, the world is all shades of gray and white...clouds layered thickly, snow softened by the promise of thaw. Nothing dramatic. Just a quiet easing. A pause that feels intentional.
Winter asks this of us, doesn’t it?
To still ourselves.
To listen.
To rest without guilt.
And then...when the time is right...to rise again without resistance.
My coffee mug warms my hands, rich and familiar. Somewhere nearby, Antonio Vivaldi’s Winter from The Four Seasons drifts through the room, its sharp brilliance softened by distance and firelight. The music doesn’t rush the day forward; it invites me into it.
We live in a world that urges constant motion. Winter reminds us that stillness is not failure...it is preparation. That returning to life doesn’t require force, only willingness.
So I lift my mug toward the faint brightening beyond the glass.
A quiet salute.
A gentle yes.
And just like that, the day begins.
~Wylddane
Perched atop the neatly stacked woodpile, Isabel...the orange-and-white tabby who ruled the household with serene authority...squinted out at the white-washed world, unimpressed but attentive.
“It’s a February thaw,” Ethan said, tugging his parka zipper up to his chin. “Don’t get sentimental.”
They set off toward the frozen lake, following a narrow trail pressed smooth by weeks of ritual walks. Bear took the lead, paws landing with a steady, metronomic confidence, his nose sweeping the air as if reading a newspaper written in scent...pine sap, fox sleep, the mineral hush of cold stone. Isabel followed with surprising elegance, hopping from fallen log to dry patch, her citrus-bright coat flaring like a small sun against the forest’s grayscale calm.
Halfway down the trail, Bear stopped so abruptly Ethan nearly collided with him. A low rumble built in the dog’s chest as a massive porcupine waddled into view, quills glinting faintly, utterly unconcerned.
Bear reconsidered his life choices and retreated to the safety of Ethan’s legs.
Isabel, however, puffed herself to twice her size and delivered a sharp, declarative hiss...the kind meant to settle disputes without escalation. The porcupine blinked, paused as if weighing the situation, then angled politely back into the brush.
“My hero,” Ethan laughed, scratching Isabel behind the ears as she resumed her dignified stride.
The lake appeared through the trees just as the sun broke free of the cloud cover, turning the ice into hammered silver. Bear rediscovered his courage and slid joyfully across the frozen surface, a great fuzzy comet skidding toward nowhere in particular. Isabel claimed a sun-warmed granite boulder and began her morning grooming with priestly devotion.
Ethan leaned against a cedar trunk and breathed. February, he thought, wasn’t really a month...it was a bridge. A place where the world practiced being still, then quietly remembered how to move again.
The silver light didn’t last.
By midmorning, the sky bruised into a deep, leaden purple. Wind began threading through the hemlocks, its low moan pulling Bear close to Ethan’s thigh.
“Time to head back,” Ethan said, the words nearly stolen by the rising gale.
They had just re-entered the denser timber when Isabel froze atop a stump. Her tail bushed out, every line of her body angled forward...not toward home, but toward a fresh crossing of tracks that cut cleanly across their earlier path.
Ethan knelt, pulse loud in his ears.
The prints were enormous. Nearly four inches wide. Perfectly round. No claw marks. The back pad showed three clean lobes.
“Cougar,” he whispered.
The storm chose that moment to arrive.
Snow swept sideways, erasing the woods into a white, breathing wall. Visibility collapsed. Sound folded inward.
“Stay close,” Ethan said.
Bear moved forward without hesitation now, instincts rising like an old song remembered. He tracked their path beneath the new powder, steady and sure. Isabel slipped behind Ethan, a silent ember against the storm’s gray. Every few yards, she chirped once...sharp, precise...anchoring them together.
Then Bear stopped.
Not growling. Not barking.
Watching.
The cougar stood on the ridge above them, perfectly still. Tawny fur dusted with snow. Golden eyes calm, reflective...not hungry, not hostile. Just present.
For a long breath, they regarded one another: man, dog, cat, and the quiet sovereign of the woods.
The cougar blinked once. Lowered its head. Stepped back into the timber and was gone...leaving only silence and the soft collapse of snow from a branch.
Ethan exhaled the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
When the porch light finally glowed through the storm, relief moved through him like warmth returning to numb fingers. Inside, the cottage welcomed them with stillness and cedar-scented air. Ethan fed the stove until the fire caught and bloomed, then set water to boil.
Bear stretched across the threshold, a guardian at rest. Isabel climbed to her rafter perch, eyes half-closed but alert.
Coffee steamed. The storm raged.
And the day, already full, settled gently into memory.
* * * * * * * * * *
"That’s what winter is: an exercise in remembering how to still yourself, then how to come pliantly back to life again.” ~Ali Smith
Outside my window, the world is all shades of gray and white...clouds layered thickly, snow softened by the promise of thaw. Nothing dramatic. Just a quiet easing. A pause that feels intentional.
Winter asks this of us, doesn’t it?
To still ourselves.
To listen.
To rest without guilt.
And then...when the time is right...to rise again without resistance.
My coffee mug warms my hands, rich and familiar. Somewhere nearby, Antonio Vivaldi’s Winter from The Four Seasons drifts through the room, its sharp brilliance softened by distance and firelight. The music doesn’t rush the day forward; it invites me into it.
We live in a world that urges constant motion. Winter reminds us that stillness is not failure...it is preparation. That returning to life doesn’t require force, only willingness.
So I lift my mug toward the faint brightening beyond the glass.
A quiet salute.
A gentle yes.
And just like that, the day begins.
~Wylddane
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