Celebration
The southern trail would have made the trip back to Montreal only a day's journey, but Dmitri didn't mind. The longer he was kept away from civilization, the more welcoming it felt to be back in its presence, after all. This let him ignore the insults and jabs given to him because he wasn't French or English. But he would deal with that once he was back around people, slowly making his way towards Boston to meet his brother who was making the long journey across the Atlantic. They had never agreed on anything, completely opposite in everything to tell the truth, but the thought of seeing not only a fellow Russian but his own blood here in the New World filled Dmitri with joyous emotion. For now, he would take the northern path, the high path, the path that would lengthen his march. He needed to celebrate in his own special way.
Back home, in the motherland, celebrations were quaint and simple. The entire village, all hundred or so villagers, would gather together; stories would be told, songs would be sung, and food would be shared. It made the young ones who would never know wealth feel like kings and queens, dancing amongst the village elders who reminisced of days long past. Dmitri had always saved some of his better furs to make capes for the children on these occasions. The capes endeared Dmitri in the hearts of the boys and girls who would struggle to survive the cold winter months. But that was not on their minds; the food and fellowship reminded everyone that though life was riddled with trouble and sin, striving to live was worth all the pain.
In the colonies the sense of camradery was still present, and the food, music, and stories were shared by all, but the connection felt foreign. Dmitri had been fortunate enough to be in Boston two years prior for a large celebration, what for Dmitri had never found out. Much coin had been spent shooting off rockets into the sky that exploded into hundreds of different directions. Blues, reds, whites, yellows. Dmitri had spent much of the festival staring at those lights, trying to decipher their meaning. He had come to the conclusion that the lights symbolized what the festival was truly about. In Russia celebrations were a means of reminding the people that they had a reason to survive; in the Americas, the celebrations assumed survival, even if that was not reality, and instead emphasized the year's past successes and future successes to come.
Dmitri had thought long and hard about which form of celebration was correct. But that debate was far from Dmitri's mind as he reached the alcove along the path that had been his home many a night during his trapping excursions. Tonight it would again shelter him, but not from snow or wind. It was a clam night, a beautifully still night, the kind of night Dmitri loved more than anything else in the world when he was alone in the frontier. He would not light a fire, nor pull out his pipe. He would sit silently waiting for his own kind of private celebration. Dmitri would pray to God, thanking Him for his success over the past year, for the safety He had provided him in this harsh landscape, and for continued safety of both himself, his family in Russia, and of his brother as he sailed to Boston. And then he would look up at the night sky to see Providence's response spread across the night sky in swirling bright green. For a man who spent all of his days alone in the woods, to celebrate the beauty of life and the world with his Creator was all the celebration Dmitri needed.
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