Morning Miracles

At some point in the middle of the night, I remember waking up in the tent with the scent of smoke filling my senses. Given the recent drought conditions, I momentarily worried that we had not doused our campfire thoroughly enough before going to bed, but I quickly realized that I had no immediate need for concern. Campfire smoke has an acrid, almost sour smell that lingers for days in hair and on clothing, eventually fading to a stale memory, but distant wildfire smoke is different. It is sweetly spiced and clings not to objects, but to the air itself enveloping everything in an invisible blanket of warmth that gets heavier and more stifling with proximity. Even from afar, its presence is overbearing on a hot, dry midsummer day, but in the slightly humid, chilled air of this autumn night the sensation was pleasant, if slightly unsettling. Though no immediate threat to me, I knew there was a fire burning to the south just over a ridge from the town of the Jackson, and that friends faced the possibility of evacuation. I lifted a few thoughts of uncertain hope up to the heavens for them and the town as I closed my eyes and fell back asleep.

Some hours later I woke up just after sunrise. I gathered my down jacket and gloves, unzipped the tent and slipped out into the quiet cold. Perched on a large rock at the edge of Leigh Lake, I observed the stillness all around me. Looking to the east, I saw a hovering wall of mist rise to blur with the smoky air aloft. The veiled sun reflected on the rippled surface of the water filling the air with a lavender gray light. Male elk bugled from distant valley meadows, their piercing screams muted to a high, haunting whistle. I was enchanted, although not unexpectedly. Such morning miracles are not uncommon in this special place.

A few hours passed with the usual tasks of breakfast and breaking camp, but even at ten o’clock when we were ready to leave, the stillness had not lifted. Without even a hint of breeze, a thick layer of cold, smoky air remained undisturbed across the obscured horizon and the lake reflected a perfect image of the surrounding trees and mountains. We slipped our canoes into the water and floated across the simulated sky. Gliding with effortless strokes, I watched as concentric rings rippled out from each droplet that trickled off the tip of my raised paddle. I heard a gentle shush as the hull split the surface of the water into two rivulets which then snaked along the side of the canoe before smoothing back into the water. It surprised me to realize this was another kind of miracle, to be suspended safely above the fathomless depths by a thin piece of concave plastic.

On and on we paddled that morning away from the peninsula where we had camped, around the shallow fringes of Mystic Isle and over to the inlet at the base of Mount Moran. I meditated on the pull of the paddle against the water, the cold air that filled my lungs and the refraction of light off the surrounding rippled sea of glass. Eventually a gentle breeze did begin to stir, breaking up the stratified air. Warmth crept back into the world and the haze slowly lifted. As the mountains regained their clarity, I shed layers until my skin felt the light of the sun. The peaceful spell was finally broken as our canoes scraped against the rocky lake shore at the portage site, but I was not sad to let it go. Even then, I knew that I would remember this experience not as a dream, but as the best kind of reality – one that I could have never imagined for myself had it not actually happened.