The other morning - it was a Friday - I opened the door to let the dogs out and was stunned by the silence. It welled up and resounded through air so still that even in robe and slippers I was aware only of the quiet, not of the bitter cold. I don't understand it, why silence gets louder the colder it gets, but there it is. Trees crack - perhaps something inside snaps - and it sounds like a gunshot. But the silence wraps around it, louder and far more powerful.
The dogs took care of business, moving quickly, plowing through fresh inches of snow, slowing down only when paws froze, paws then dangled in the air as they skip-hopped back through the door. A moment's jostle and commotion, then I closed the door behind them, taking a last look at nothing but snow drifting down, without a sound.
Outside the kitchen window, the thermometer read 10 degrees below zero. It was the first morning since the cold had started on Tuesday that I could see the bashful red stripe; on other mornings it had been obliterated by snow. This, I knew, was the coldest morning yet - I could tell by the quiet - but it certainly wasn't as cold as other places. I heard Pickle Lake, Ironwood, all of Minnesota, and Chicago were colder. Still, later when I went out, I gasped as my lungs contracted in horror, shocked, I suppose, by the frigid dryness of it all.
Then over the weekend the temperatures rose into the teens and twenties and it felt like spring. That may sound funny, but when it's 30 degrees warmer at 7:33 a.m Monday than it was at 7:33 a.m. Friday you can feel it. And when the fine dust of a snow that fell throughout the deep freeze is now large jolly flakes, you notice.
The snow, by the way, does not end, and there is no place to put it. Because you have to move it out of the way to get around. Over the past few days the powder has built up another 10 or 12 inches, and one sinks into it as one walks. It seems weightless, like white crystallized air, but walking through air should not be this hard. And shoveling air, you would think, would not make one weary. And air certainly doesn't take up so much space, but try telling that to a balloon. Still, snow gets moved around and it piles up and the world takes on new shapes and colors. The fallen snowflakes cast light shadows on one another, and today the landscape is greyish white.
As we walked this morning, I tried to make the analogy that people are like snowflakes, in that each is unique, but mass a whole bunch together and they all begin to look alike. But the analogy didn't work. That's the way snowflakes are, I thought, but it's not the way people are. Or is it? It was quiet, but not severe. Trees were popping like champagne corks but it was all muffled, as if the party were one flight up or two doors down. We sank deep in the fresh snow, yet still, there was a feeling of spring.
The dogs took care of business, moving quickly, plowing through fresh inches of snow, slowing down only when paws froze, paws then dangled in the air as they skip-hopped back through the door. A moment's jostle and commotion, then I closed the door behind them, taking a last look at nothing but snow drifting down, without a sound.
Outside the kitchen window, the thermometer read 10 degrees below zero. It was the first morning since the cold had started on Tuesday that I could see the bashful red stripe; on other mornings it had been obliterated by snow. This, I knew, was the coldest morning yet - I could tell by the quiet - but it certainly wasn't as cold as other places. I heard Pickle Lake, Ironwood, all of Minnesota, and Chicago were colder. Still, later when I went out, I gasped as my lungs contracted in horror, shocked, I suppose, by the frigid dryness of it all.
Then over the weekend the temperatures rose into the teens and twenties and it felt like spring. That may sound funny, but when it's 30 degrees warmer at 7:33 a.m Monday than it was at 7:33 a.m. Friday you can feel it. And when the fine dust of a snow that fell throughout the deep freeze is now large jolly flakes, you notice.
The snow, by the way, does not end, and there is no place to put it. Because you have to move it out of the way to get around. Over the past few days the powder has built up another 10 or 12 inches, and one sinks into it as one walks. It seems weightless, like white crystallized air, but walking through air should not be this hard. And shoveling air, you would think, would not make one weary. And air certainly doesn't take up so much space, but try telling that to a balloon. Still, snow gets moved around and it piles up and the world takes on new shapes and colors. The fallen snowflakes cast light shadows on one another, and today the landscape is greyish white.
As we walked this morning, I tried to make the analogy that people are like snowflakes, in that each is unique, but mass a whole bunch together and they all begin to look alike. But the analogy didn't work. That's the way snowflakes are, I thought, but it's not the way people are. Or is it? It was quiet, but not severe. Trees were popping like champagne corks but it was all muffled, as if the party were one flight up or two doors down. We sank deep in the fresh snow, yet still, there was a feeling of spring.
