We knew this one was on the way. We could see it coming, lumbering toward us like a huge polar bear, and by late yesterday closing notices were going up all over town: the schools, the library, the post office. The store was crowded with folks stocking up on food, intent on hurrying home. By the time I pulled into our driveway, the first heavy flakes had begun to fall. The whole world seemed to be holding its breath.
It snowed all night long. No wind, not a sound - just the steady, silent snow, for hour after hour.
This morning I woke up to find the house was filled with a soft new light, and the view outside the windows had been utterly transformed. The world had become a masterpiece of snow, piled on every roof and tree and wire. The branches on the oak trees were lines of black and white, the pines were heaped with snow, and all the bushes were bent nearly flat under its weight. Even the telephone wires had become long lines of snow, suspended in midair. I went from window to window, staring in wonder at a world so beautiful it took my breath away.
I dressed, put on my boots and coat and walked out into the whiteness. It was so very quiet. There's no silence quite like the hush of a snowy world. The only sound was the soft "plop" of a dollop of snow off a nearby branch. The birds were silent, quietly drifting down to the feeder, then back to their small space on some branch. The packed snow on the top of a bush nearby had made a new shelter for them, and they hopped around beneath it. The chipmunk was busily stealing their sunflower seeds, filling his cheeks and hurrying to his burrow and back. Rabbit tracks in the snow wandered here and there, and I could see where a deer had walked across the field off to the woods.
The road was gone; our long country road has become a strip of soft emptiness, and the nearest house looked as far off as the moon.
Winter has taken over, and it's brought our busy world skidding to a halt.
This time of year is so full: the to-do lists and trips to the stores, the shopping online and cleaning the house and wrapping gifts and on and on. Visits and concerts and hurrying here and there, worrying and fussing and struggling to make it all just right.
But not today. Here in the snow, suddenly all those things seem inconsequential. They have nothing to do with this silent beauty around me, far larger and more mysterious than my small life.
It's begun to snow again. I tilt my head back and let a few flakes fall on my face. I take a deep breath of the crisp, clean air, look around me one more time, and make my way back to the house.
Our power is out, we have no heat, no internet either, so it will be a cold, quiet day. But that's all right, I think. I'll stay home, bundle up and sit by the wood stove, eat a simple meal or two and watch the birds at the feeder.
Sooner or later the storm will be over, the lights will come back on, and I'll hurry back into holiday high speed. But I think I'll try to carry this hush with me as I go. There's a lesson whispering to me in this day I need to remember.
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