I am exploring an abandoned building next to the lodge. Moving slow, alone, I tread lightly through the space. It feels stable, and I’m pretty sure it is, but I move with caution anyways. I wander with curiosity, uncovering objects that were once given life by the people who touched them, made them, used them: old paintings, books, cups and tea tins; puzzles, food trays, whistles and ski boots; bags full of rubbish, debris, old door frame fragments and hand wipes; sink parts that once offered water, insulation that once offered warmth. I spend over an hour moving quietly through the dilapidated structure, finding worn robes and small TV’s, rusting tacks and bobby pins; Japanese graffiti that I don’t understand, though the smilie faces make me believe the message must be sweet and soft, perhaps even playful or uplifting. Drafts of cold air gently enter through the windows and sunken roof; snow has rolled into the spaces that allowed it, the color white has laced itself inside the edges of old bedrooms, bathrooms, hallways.

At the end of a corridor I find a room with an open, wooden window frame facing the mountain. I sit down in silence, kneel, listen, breathe. I play a meditation my friend recently sent me, stretch and feel my body, move with sensation, give gratitude for the gift of time and space. 

As the sun dips down and beckons darkness I gather my new trinkets and attempt to retrace my steps out. I notice a staircase I’d originally missed and I decide there’s still enough time to take one more look. I put down my things and climb the steps. At the top I arrive to sagging blue tarps, shadows and small hills of snow. I glance down and see the base of an old bee hive at my feet; snowflakes filling hexagonal honeycomb cells, concentric circles lining each hole. I marvel at this miracle of creation, place it in my palm and observe it’s paper bag texture. It feels strange to hold something that was once so full of buzzing life and hard work, thick honey and painful stingers. 

I return it to the ground and gaze around the room. Night is settling in quick and I’ll have to come back another day. As I turn to leave I notice the corners of a half buried cloth peeking out from underneath the snow. “One last thing…”, I think, as I bend down and pull it out. It’s checkered green and brown and I hold it up to see if I can offer it a home. An odd piece of rope connects two of it’s edges though and I can’t quite figure out what it was once used as – a net? Some type of funky shawl? I don’t understand and my glove-less hands are starting to freeze. I fold it up and just before I return it to the floor I notice a red and black circle in the corner of it’s crease. I gasp. A lady bug. A Japanese lady bug. Found in the dead of winter. Found in the last bit of breath I’d given the space. Dormant and dry. Large and different. What are the odds? I stare at it for minutes. A Japanese lady bug. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.