There are hundreds of kinds of snow… these are but a few…
…walking over a bridge, over a river, maybe near Chicago’s Water Tower; snow quiet, unshoveled, but wind so sharp-cold it feels like it will crack the bones in your face…
and the slush with mud puddles ankle-deep, and your boots arent sealed well at the soles…
and up near timberline in the mountains, the snowpoles that stick up above the snowline so the big yellow snowplows know where the road ends and the ravine begins… are nearly covered over, including a no-parking sign at a turn out…
I dont drink, but it’s kinda cool when you open the front door and the snow has drifted high. Some are ingenious … using the snow to cool the brew
we can now see what our ancestors could only dream in their night dreams… a satellite picture of the swath of snow… some not even yet fallen yet but carried in the clouds overhead… here is Nebraska, Kansas and part of Colorado…
and the willow trees are the most vulnerable as are the electrical wires… covered with snow those long wands, then… it rained, then it froze… the ice is heavier than snow… trucks from the local light company will be cruising in the snow reporting back on endangered heavy lines… and some houses will not light up with yellow window panes this night
the men and women driving the big rig repair trucks with the cherry pickers and harnesses will have thermoses of hot coffee, the heaters in the trucks never work well enough, the men’s mustache’s will frost over, and hair in the nose will fill with ice crystals
and for any of us wise-guys who thought we would take a shortcut and just pull aside those snowy limbs, the slash of a tree branch whipping back against our cheeks is such memorable pain…
being a commissioner for Special Needs scouts in the BSA, I’m more deeply aware than ever that some of us have more challenge than others in snow, especially when snow is not shoveled long long after it has fallen
and in the Rocky mountains here, those humans who have been given such grace and bearing so as to have near-flight on skis, imitate fireflies by skiing with yellow wands lit full against the night sky… In my next lifetime, I would love to not have delicate health all my life, but rather be able to have this wondrous gift of ‘near-flight.’
Then, there’s this, can you imagine??!! Come stand with me here.Truly come stand with me here at the very top of Everest looking into Nepal. Can you imagine?? This lifetime, next lifetime, any life time, can you imagine us having made the trek without dying and standing here? Wouldnt that be the coolest? They say people climb mountains because they’re there, the mountains that is.
But, many of us know, dont we, that people climb mountains in order to see the naked face of God fully alive… to lay eyes on the living Alpha and Omega.
So, dear Readers,
May any snow this winter be good to you and for you and your loved ones. May all your roads be safe, all water reservoirs be filled and not overfilled; may all snow cover and make beautiful even those structures that seem homely and plain, and may the quiet of the snow at night while we’re warm and cozy indoors, fill us with a resonant peace and calm.
There’s a saying from the Old Country that my immigrant father used to say about the winter: ‘Winter’s lessons to man, year after year, are the same… peace and patience… and good stories around the fire.’
May this be so for all of us.
Blessed Holidays,
Dr.E