Aki and I walk on a snow-covered meadow barely able to support my weight. The little dog, she flies across it. But I break through the crust on every fourth step. Yesterday, a deer struggled along the meadow’s edge, its hooves plunging five inches or more on each step. I follow its tracks until Aki starts to bark at a spot in the forest ahead of us. The poodle-mix is edgy after I veer off the deer trail.

The sky is also edgy, changeable. When we arrived it was filled with clouds and fog. Now the sun has opened up a blue wound in the gray and sparkles on snow-covered alders and willows. It puts me on edge. I’d be comfortable in the calming gray, maybe a little joyful under sunny skies. But the meadow whipsaws back and forth between joy and sorrow, mimicking a wake.