March 12, 2017 – The stillness of fallen snow

        Perhaps this final (?) snow storm of the season will be ‘March comes in like a lion, and goes out like a lamb' beginning our Southern Spring. 

        I was born in New England and transplanted here to North Carolina 31 years ago, so it is a big deal when it snows for me.  Makes me homesick, yet I don’t miss the “snow shoveling” of large storms. 

        I do love it when it snows.  It covers the landscape in a white washed canvas and allows my gardener’s mind to mentally create new and different flower gardens.  Yes, I love to see my property under the mantel of a few inches of snow.   To say it is “pretty” is simply an understatement.  I honestly don’t have enough words to describe the beauty of it and you would get bored if I continued on with extensive verbiage on such unless it was in a soothing poem.  I will save that for another day.

        Last night leaving a meeting at the church hall I stopped out on the sidewalk and paused with a young teenager who was looking up assessing the night sky and we were both “sniffing” the air for signs of possible snow.  I am an old timer at “sniffing” the air for snow and actually know what it smells like.    He was about 1/3^rd my age and was new at the game.

        Curious as I am about young people and their perceptions I asked,

        “When it snows at night, does it wake you up from the silence it creates?”

        “No, the brightness wakes me,” he answered immediately, relaxed and self-confident.  He didn’t even know me other than I was a member of the same church.

        I replied, “Ahh, the silence wakes me, there are too many security lights around my house so the brightness seems always to be there, snow sort of makes it all too quiet.” I made a mental note: “Big age difference, but almost on the same page when it comes to snow; that is comforting.”

        Knowing snow was forecasted last night I actually looked forward to being woken up by the “silence” of the snow. 

I awoke suddenly and thought, “What woke me?”  Then I instantly realized the 'what'. I laid there in bed a moment and tried to listen and couldn’t hear a thing.  I didn’t even have to look out the window – the additional brightness from the snowfall had erased just about every shadow from the room.

        When the grass is covered in white and there is about 1 to 2 inches of snow – there is a deafening silence – you might call that an oxymoron, but it is so unusually quiet that the lack of noise wakes me up.  Sometimes it is phrased as muted stillness.  Maybe it is the insulation on the snow that creates an acoustical blanket?  I don’t know – I simply recognize the stillness of fallen snow.

        I tossed back the covers, padded to the front door, unlocked it and stepped out barefoot to confirm the snowfall about 1 to 2 inches already carpeting the front lawn.   And, the predawn snow was still coming down in silent wisps kissing my upturned face.  I reveled in it since I don’t get snowflakes kissing my eye lids very often here in the south.

I read somewhere the phrase: “The shush of the landing of wet heavy crystals of snow.”   Maybe that explains the sound best.

Dawn has broken, coffee made and the day begins covered in glorious snow.

It’s time to pull on my boots, hat, and mittens

and walk around the property just to listen

to the snow fall and suck in the brace of cold air

into my lungs before it all disappears.

Maybe I will see deer tracks again like I did last time.