Pictures of the snow never seem to capture the beauty one experiences firsthand. I think it's because the blanketing hush of the scene is missing. You can't hear silence in a photograph.
But I couldn't resist trying. We don't get many big snows around here and this is our second dramatic, heavy snowfall of the season. After Beatrice went down for a nap I went outside to shovel, and it was breathtaking. Everything still, everything white.
Then I came in, and sat down.
I'm so accustomed to maximizing every spare minute - perhaps you know about this? - that spending time gazing out the window is utterly unsettling. Disorienting. Beatrice is sleeping, Mike is reading upstairs, there are 41 more minutes before pick up time: I'm alone. Normally I would be responding to email, calling a medical billing office (there seems to be one of those calls on the to do list every day), carting laundry upstairs, arranging kid stuff.
This is insanity, this staring at the snow business! But I can't seem to move.
Downshifting is harder than it seems. After months spent in high-alert mode, I am only just now regaining the ability to embody slowness. To let go of a sense of urgency crackling beneath the surface, all the time. I didn't choose this; rather time accumulated, the seasons shifted, and now the snow invites me to feel a quiet heaviness in my limbs.
Winter! Who knew? I thought you were a dreary mess to endure, to tolerate, just for the payoff of spring. Yet this year I am grateful for your white stillness, your peaceful hush.
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