Winter is my favorite time of year. Without the bother of mosquitoes or ticks, winter is when I most often spend time outdoors, and that has been true for most of my life. Growing up at the base of a ski mountain in a family of skiers almost single-handedly defined my childhood, and that enmeshment in the culture of skiing continued on into my adult years, where I spent almost all of my 20s working in the world of ski racing.

In the last few years, I have pulled away from skiing, mostly by my own choice as I look to redefine how it fits into my life. My love for the sport began to fade, rather quickly, and as it did, I started to question what that meant for my relationship with the place I've called home my entire life. So much of our existence in the northeast is spent in winter, and I was beginning to resent the thing that was synonymous to me with wintertime. It may seem dramatic, but I had a bit of an identity crisis when I realized I no longer wanted to be so emotionally and physically invested in skiing. I began to ask myself questions such as, How will I feel about winter without skiing? Will I start to hate it here? Will I want to live here at all? These questions scared me, because I didn't have the answers.  

As I hoped it would, the shift away from skiing allowed for me to explore some other ways to enjoy winter. I revisited my love of ice skating, which was something I did for fun with friends when I was a kid. I dipped my toes into winter hiking—more like winter walks on trails, but some routes end up being steeper than others. Above all, however, my absolute new favorite way to be outside in the winter is on snowshoes in the woods. No trail, just exploring through the trees behind my house. There is something so brilliantly peaceful about having no course in front of me, just the organic direction of nature, and the imprints in the snow from the families of wild hares living within the tree wells.

The Northeast is known for being one of the most beautiful places on earth, and many choose to live here so they can explore the outdoors any time they'd like. If this sounds like something you'd love to do, the agents at Badger Peabody & Smith can help you find the perfect home. Alternatively, if you are looking to split your time between here and somewhere else and aren't sure of the first steps needed to make that transition, an agent can help with that, too.

During my most recent snowshoe excursion, I let myself get lost for a bit. I walked the property line, allowing the snow-covered stone wall remnants to act as my guide. I went along like this for a while before deciding to turn in toward the trees and bushwack my way through for a bit. I tramped along into the thicket until I reached the frozen edge of the brook, and decided I'd follow that back until I knew where I was again. I was surprised to walk only a few steps before I could see my house peeking through the pine trees. I had been snowshoeing for maybe half an hour and felt so far away, only to end up just barely beyond the tree line.

I looked at my house from this angle and felt surprisingly emotional; I was overcome with a deep feeling of gratitude. In that moment, I had a realization that I spend a lot of my time feeling consumed by very human-specific problems that I create and inhabit within myself and therefore within my home as well. But somehow, looking at my house from this vantage point in the woods, I realized how insignificant it all really is. I imagined the many deer, hares, bobcats, turkeys, coyotes, and more who have stood in that very spot long before and many times more than me. How lucky am I to be granted the opportunity to share their woods? I used to find this same peaceful feeling when I stood at the top of a mountain on skis and looked down at the world below me. That feeling has felt so far away from me for quite some time, but in that moment, I realized it was just beyond the trees all along.

Paige O. Roberts has a degree in Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Henniker Review, Sidereal Magazine, Rejection Letters, and Cypress. She has been nominated for a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize. She lives in northern New Hampshire, where she owns and operates a pet boutique called Tailswag.