Today I ponder the beauty of snow. How could I not? Its vibrant call is impossible to ignore today, its breath a roar against my window, a white tornado! I hear so many people complain about the snow. When I travel, people ask how I could possibly live in New England or how I could possibly tolerate the harsh existence of snow. But I love it. It’s not harsh to me at all. But a beautiful reminder of life and all its quirks. It makes me pause. Think. Stay still. Even my mind takes the hint. It makes me feel giddy. Like a kid. I bring my hot cocoa to the window and simply sit and reminisce, watch the squirrels and birds, and yes, even a bunny this morning, before it got to be too much, share the seeds put out in my back yard. It brings me back to days of school cancellations and snow igloos and King of the Mountain games in my childhood neighborhood and of course, pancake breakfasts my dad would make us. (I still live for banana pancakes to this day!). Perhaps it’s because my vocation allows me to remain a kid. A lot. That I still get the school cancellations. And I’m safe and don’t need to drive in it. That for this one moment in time, I’m not an adult with all the headaches that can accompany that responsibility, but instead, I’m still the girl in pigtails with the handmade hat and mittens, just waiting to build her next snowman. Every first huge snowstorm, I think about Mary Oliver’s poem. I don’t believe in a traditional god, as I’ve said before. But my god! Beauty like this just does give me pause. And, as Oliver writes, “not a single answer can found,” I revel in my belief in agnosticism, for the answers don’t matter right now. Just the moment as it appears before my very eyes that cannot be denied. And I leave it with you as I stay still in my bundled-up sweater and watch the first snow from the safety of home. FIRST SNOW
The snow began here this morning and all day continued, its white rhetoric everywhere calling us back to why, how, whence such beauty and what the meaning; such an oracular fever! flowing past windows, an energy it seemed would never ebb, never settle less than lovely! and only now, deep into night, it has finally ended. The silence is immense, and the heavens still hold a million candles, nowhere the familiar things: stars, the moon, the darkness we expect and nightly turn from. Trees glitter like castles of ribbons, the broad fields smolder with light, a passing creekbed lies heaped with shining hills; and though the questions that have assailed us all day remain — not a single answer has been found -- walking out now into the silence and the light under the trees, and through the fields, feels like one. ~Mary Oliver~
1 Comment
J
1/6/2018 20:55:34
I enjoy your zest!
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I LOVE to write and read. I particularly enjoy reading erotic romance that has tons of emotion in it. I hope you will ask me questions and share your favorite authors and novels. I welcome all feedback.
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