A long time coming, but here it is: the first real-for-sure snowstorm of the season. We are snowbound for the day! Although I've abandoned the patterned stocking caps, immobilizing snow pants, and dawn-to-dusk sledding and snowball lobbing of a Central Pennsylvania youth, I nonetheless welcome this day with anticipation and good cheer. Rummaging through the foyer closet for earmuffs and gloves and boots, throwing on a jacket, and wrapping a home-crocheted scarf about my neck, I venture forth into a white-blanketed, wind-chilled world. And once we dispense with responsible acts of driveway shoveling and walkway clearing, I take a slow stroll-- perhaps more of a clumsy, snow-stepping traipse-- around the winter garden.
 |
| Upstarts. |
Our domestic landscape has been transformed. Only yesterday, daffodil sprouts lined the walkway, upstart harbingers of spring, coaxed from sheltering mulch by mild winter temperatures. A warm breeze nudged wispy clouds across blue sky. As afternoon wore on, however, February's low sun cast an unsettled glow, and a wall of rolling gray gathered on the western horizon. Change was coming.
 |
| Evergreen Decked in Snow. |
Lo and behold, we awoke inside a snow globe! The cloak of winter is both obscuring and revelatory. Much is concealed (see you later, daffodil sprouts) but much is discovered. The familiar and customary are rendered unfamiliar and fantastic. On a winter day, we see and sense and hear in new ways.
 |
| Iced Andromeda. |
 |
| Footprints. |
Winter drapes evergreens with pillows of white, encases deciduous branches in brittle ice, forms stalactites on our brick chimney wall. Look at the snow day sky: lavender-gray during snowfall gives way to clearing crystal-blue and, at day's end, a lovely pink dusk-- all backdrops to the dark-veined architecture of our big backyard oak. A lone dove rests beneath the bird feeder, nibbling seed dropped by careless feathered friends. There are footprints in the backyard. Who has scampered through our suburban wonderland?
 |
| Winter Dove. |
I feel the touch of winter, air distilled to taciturn simplicity, a quick intake of breath, a shower of wind-tossed snow crystals across my forehead. I remember the thrill of catching long-ago snowflakes on my tongue and-- despite admonishment from elders-- the collapsing crunch of stolen bites of snow scooped by bright blue woolen mittens.
 |
| Winter Boxwood. |
And just listen: sound carries differently on a snow day. When the wind calms, hear the muted whistle of a slow-moving, city-bound train. Hear the muffled chime-song from St. Patrick's down the hill. When the wind blows, hear its admonition: hush, hush, hush, be still, be still. Be. Still.
 |
| Sunlight and Snow Shadow. |
Ultimately, a walk in the winter garden offers welcome reprieve from the current climate, an exhausting political and cultural climate, where reaction takes precedence over reflection, where-- with apologies to Shakespeare-- the air is full of sound and fury, signifying... so many things. I retreat, for a time, for a single snow day, from the cacophony of sounds and furious voices, viscerally celebrating all that can be seen and all that lies beneath the beautiful driven snow.
I prefer winter... when you feel the bone structure of the landscape--
the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter.
Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show.
-- Andrew Wyeth
