Near High Falls, NY (population 624). A bright cold afternoon in late December...

The snow-powdered bridge marks the threshold to the forest. Underneath, water rushes past massive boulders of ice, in search of available crevices. As I enter the path lined by snowy pines, my footsteps soften and the clamor of the highway dissipates.

On one side, the stream continues. On the other, a snowy hill lined in shrubs keeps visitors on the path. Past this greenery, suddenly, waiting there for me across the unbroken snow, is solitude. A few feet into the open woods, I feel the perfect serenity that only pristine nature can provide, a place on earth that is utterly foreign to my Floridian sensibilities, one that I have only read about in books. The gentrifying towns and warming suburbs - places I've lived my whole life - they would never look like this whimsical wonderland.

My footsteps leave imprints in the snow. Perhaps another wanderer will wonder who I was. Or maybe the snow will have fallen again by then, erasing all trace of me, of the enjoyment this crisp new world gives me.

Running down the hill, my foot finds itself stuck deep in the soft snows. Such occurrences are impossible on city concrete.

In a clearing ahead, the sun pokes its head out of the clouds. I meander to a navy pool, the product of the rushing brook.

I capture hours of the scenery with my phone, footage I have never fully watched. Even as I record video after video, I know that it is pointless, that any record of today viewed on the artificial backlit screen of a computer will be incomplete.

I walk uphill moist wooden stairs to a path half built into the mountainside, the stream quickening below me as it descends through a steep gorge. Icicles, as intricate as sculptures and as large as the pines up on the rim, line the gorge's walls. I marvel at how the tiny stream is responsible for all of it. It shaped the rocks, fed the trees, and now soothes my ears, the drone of the highway long since forgotten.

My path winds, directly over the now racing stream. And then I'm moving away from it, the rush of the flowing water and the echo of the gorge fading behind me. I've given up taking videos. I understand that this day can never be wholly relived, only replayed in my mind. And so the slim electronic gadget I've been clutching like a talisman for hours—for months, years if I'm being honest—swings with my arm like the useless weight it has become.

Hunger gnaws in my belly. My tired eyes droop. Wearily I traverse back toward the parking lot. Before I can hear cars on the highway again, I pause to take in the snowy landscape one last time. I try to absorb it, every tree and every icicle and every sound, try to let if flood my limbs and fill my mind, so that I can keep the memory close to me, like a talisman, as I walk on city concrete in the months ahead--a reminder that beyond the din of cars and roadways, such magic is still at work in the world.