I went into quarantine, because a family member may have had contact with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. But instead of wearing a mask and skulking around the house for ten days, I decided to seclude myself at our cabin by the lake — unwinterized, no electricity, no running water, an outhouse that gave poignant meaning to "freeze your butt off," a wood stove, and not enough wood.

What I hadn't expected was that March, after coming in like a lion, would go out like a lion. Snow. Temperatures of 12 below Celsius. More snow. Sleet. Still more snow. And finally, freezing rain.

The forecast had called for temperatures of plus 8. And sunshine. It lied. I never did manage to get warm.

The Inuit, I recall, have dozens of words for snow, each one identifying a different kind. I felt a certain kinship with them. I developed a similar lexicon for chilly, ranging from, "No goosepimples yet," to "No place without goosepimples."

I made enough hot tea to parboil every potato in Toronto. But it was counterproductive, because I had to triple the number of trips outside to recycle the tea water, where the wind ripped out any warmth I'd won. A straightforward cold I could have managed. I think. But this being the beginning of April, it was an insidious cold. A damp cold. A mean, penetrating, double-crossing cold.

There also was wood to scrounge for the stove, rooting around in the snow like an misplaced warthog. And the kilometre trek home through the bush to shovel snow and feed horses. Three times a day. With the final trip at night when it was  so dark I often couldn't see the trail, and had to go by memory.

But still, the beauty. It warmed the heart, if not the body. The snow mounding on drooping hemlock branches. The many shades of white across the surface of the lake ice. The tiny rivulets, determined to proclaim spring even with snow humped over their edges, black water riffling so merrily you'd almost swear it was giggling.

And the stories in the snow. Deer tracks pausing by a cabin window. I wonder what they thought, seeing me inside. The waddling walk of a porcupine, its belly and tail cutting a groove in the snow, looking for another tree on which to feed. A great horned own hooting so close at night that it might have been sitting on a window sill. And in the morning, some chickadee feathers scattered on the snow with no sign of a struggle. I wonder if it was the owl that got it.

Most of all, the quiet. There were times, in a tranquil spot, when I could hear the wind moving in the pines some way away. And I could follow its path as it swept past me, curving where I know there's a ridge, and hurrying on, who knows where. I love that sound. I love it as much as the yipping and yowling of coyotes at night.

It was such a reprieve from the daily news. A restorative. A context from which to judge all else. Here, in the woods, there is no such thing as revenge. Need exists, but not greed.

Progress is measured by the degree of harmony. The degree to which all living things can flourish. By the level of mutual support that makes the whole much greater than its parts.

The newspapers that my partner delivered reported on two warring armies, each believing its god had declared its cause to be righteous.

If I follow the logic through, Heaven must be a tremendously argumentative place. I have no desire to visit it. I have found a better alternative here on earth, far shorter though my stay will be.