Snowfalls and Sunrises

     Looking out at Lightfall Hollow today through a driving rain, I see only dirty tatters of the snow that, earlier this month, completely swaddled the hollow in a cottony sheet of spotless white. The woods are now practically naked and drenched to the core. The trees shiver and drip. My maternal instinct kicks in, and I feel an urge to bundle the woods back up again, but I do not possess the prowess of winter’s magnificent matriarch, and I know it. The forest probably knows it too.

     I wonder how long it will be before the pearled grande dame visits the hollow again. I hope it won’t be too long. Because although it’s true she has a frosty air about her and is as mute as can be, she invariably comes bearing wonderful gifts. 

     The peace of a quieted world. The wide variety of delightful dances snowfalls perform. The satisfying morsel of a snowflake caught on a searching, hungry tongue. The sweet treat of maple syrup hardened into taffy by drizzling it on snow. (Clean snow, of course!) The creative opportunity to make a snow person, angel, or igloo. 

     A fallen snow catching sunlight and sparkling with the clarity of finest crystal. The same fallen snow catching sunlight and sparkling with the pastel tints of Easter. “Spring is on its way!” the normally subdued colors seem to shout. The diaphanous, glowing blue found in the depths of accumulated snow, as though bits and pieces of the blaring sky have snuggled up with the silent white and are taking a snooze.

     The thrill of sledding or skiing down a hill made mountainous by snow. The thrill of cross-country skiing through a mundane patch of ground turned wonderland. The fascination of looking through a magnifying glass at the exquisite and intricate hexagonal ice sculptures of snowflakes. There is nothing more beautiful.

     While also so fleeting. A snowflake exists but for a few seconds. It either melts, evaporates, or amasses with other snowflakes in a mishmash, as though sacrificing its individual self for the common good. In any case, a sublime beauty gone too soon. But that’s life.

     Yet, it is also life that there is ever something beautiful to behold. Even if only for too short of a time. And it is always for too short of a time. 

     A week ago, before the temperature began to climb and the snow began to disappear, the wind tore the lid off my husband and my garbage container that sits more than a mile down the road from our cabin. Unlike the United State Postal Service, the local garbage collectors do not refuse to drive this far into the woods on a narrow dirt road to where there is little space for a large vehicle to turn around. Nonetheless, they are grateful we do not ask them for the inconvenience.

     My husband and I knew better than to leave our garbage overnight in a lidless container. By 5 AM when the trash collectors came for pickup, the wildlife would have had our trash, some of it of a rather personally embarrassing nature, strewn across the road, through the fields, into the woods, and heaven only knows where else. 

     So, at 4:30 AM the next morning, I rather grumpily got up in what our porch thermometer said was two degrees Fahrenheit to climb into a frigid car and drive the garbage down to the end of the road and the lidless container. But here’s the amazing thing.

     Because of the freezing cold, ice crystals had formed in the underbrush on both sides of the road. As I drove by, my car’s headlights shone on the crystals, making them coruscate. For as far as my eyes could see, it looked like the woods had been strung with little Christmas twinkle lights. It was gorgeous. I rode back and forth several times, never wanting the spectacle to end. What I had anticipated as a miserable chore had become a beautiful extravaganza.

     Then there was the dawn of a couple of days ago. Everything was draped in a gray mist, and it must have had something to do with the way the sun was trying to break through, but everything also looked as though outlined in silver. Cobwebby interiors with moonlit edges.

     How frequently does that happen? I don’t think very often. But no matter. Because, at least for now, there’s always yet another beautiful thing to behold. It is genuinely apparent that the world has a vast wealth of beauty. However, the other truth that needs to be told is that it is a rare, maybe even nonexistent beauty that is immune from destruction. 

     One more beauty I’ll try to describe, and then I’ll quit for now. The dawn of another day this past week. This one was anything but gray. It started out lavender and peach. Soon thereafter, a reddish-purple magenta and an orange-yellow apricot showed up and brushed against the first couple. The apricot brightened to orange. The peach paled to yellow. It was as though the flamboyant apricot intimidated the shy peach. Whereas the apricot was emboldened by its presumed superiority. As for the purples, they stayed where they were and did nothing.

      But then a gentle blue, along with a serious pink inserted themselves into the mix. The blue and the pink weaved themselves together, and the purples and orange departed. While the yellow of the former peach deepened to gold and soared across the sky.

     With it, a streak of pure green appeared on the horizon. Green, the color of hope.

     And thus the sun rose.