January 6, 2014
Greetings from where I am embedded,
In a grey tableau, Nature dips her hand into a cloud and
mixes an icy breath and pours out a white tempest.
It transforms the landscape from a dull, uninspired brown,
to something else. It is beautiful,
seductive. The sharp edges and messy spaces
of the world are changed to soft, cool, undulating waves of white. At first we are beguiled by its beauty,
smiling at the thought of snowmen and sledding.
The snow blankets our world, overwhelms us, isolates
us. We are pushed into ditches, stopped
at intersections. Inconvenience turns to
fear. Panic sets in, and there are long
lines at the grocery store and the gas stations.
The storm, named or not, will advance aggressively and Man
will respond in kind. It is war. There will be skirmishes in driveways,
battles along the freeways, each of us doing hand to hand combat, fracases at
every stoop. Shovels and plows and
blowers and salt, angry tools of hostility, aimed at pushing back the snow,
packing it into submission, to hold it prisoner in banks of our choice.
Snow falls in different calibers, large and fluffy and tiny
and harsh. The wind whips it into a blinding
curtains of white, to immoblize us and disorient us. Drifts
mound up, cold punishes, dampness uses guerilla tactics; creeps in around the
cracks of our clothes, fills in our boots, sneaks up into our gloves to chill
us.
The war begins and neither force will give way or give
in.
I know which side I’m on.
I had already had a shovel in hand, making casualties amid the white
quilt, claiming rectangles of territory.
Then giving back the conquests as quick as they were won.
But I no sooner had begun than I grew tired of it. I already knew the outcome. There would be a protracted war, months
perhaps, and in the end it would be a settled draw. The snow would retreat in spring, remake
itself into something more poetic that will bring May flowers. And Man will rub his hands in deluded
satisfaction.
I leaned the shovel on the wall and went inside and changed
into clothes that better suited my passive nature. I traded boots for running shoes, and my shoveling
parka-uniform for something lighter to travel in. Clothes that didn’t make my shoulders hunch
in tension.
I went out impulsively with no agenda other than to run. And see what was to see.
And for a while I joined the snow. I waded into it and let it swirl around me,
like white foam, surf driven in from all around me, no shore to disrupt it. It swallowed my every step, but tugged
playfully, without threat, the powder sifting harmlessly over my shoes.
I ran along the road, leaving a narrow string of evidence, my
body warming to the effort.
The snow chased after me, clouds of it shaping around me,
and then rushing ahead, then settling to the ground, filling in the divots I
had made in its work.
For a while I ran with the snow, reveled in it, enjoyed it
as an acquaintance, forgot it as an occupying force, forgot it as an obstacle
to my agenda. It became something
else. Running in it, with no other
reason other than to be in it, I saw it as a child would see it. And knew it again as a companion, a part of
the day to be embraced, immersed in, and not the enemy.
Trees pulled on white afghans, lacy and intricate, and seem
to be sprouting Q-tips in their branches.
I ran past empty fields, now filled with a crop of white frosting. Houses, mailboxes, fences, and signs, all
were changed to some new shape, accented in ivory.
Running down through the center of town, the yellow light
flashing at the intersection, the snow changing the town from a grid of streets
to a one neighborhood. Holiday wreaths
hung from the lampposts, coated in white, no longer outdated.
Most of the world, like the sun, had yet to rise. The only sign that anyone else had seen the
snow was the carvings in the road left from a few brave souls out driving. Different sorts of marks. These tracks, straight and directed, all
business and destination focused. And
these, scissoring through the white, criss crossing in the white like a Moebius
rendering, someone at play.
The earth was muffled by the thick white batting. There was not much to challenge it at that time
of morning, but even the sound of my breathing seemed dim. Not the slightest echo, which made the world
seem closer, the place around me more intimate.
I circled back toward home, passing the faint dimples I had
left in the snow, fully at ease now, my body warm, relaxed, my feet sure, legs
finding the perfect cadence in the texture I charged through. When I stood at the end of my drive, smiling,
panting white puffs, I looked back at what nature had brought, and knew it as
beauty.
The snow continued to fall, innocent, misunderstood. While Man saw it as an onslaught, new layers
and depths, trenches and mounds of frozen occupation.
I eventually rejoined the ranks, took up my shovel, worked
to push back the juggernaut that piled up to keep Man from his
industriousness. But this is not where
my heart is. I would rather let the snow
have its way for now, to simply rest with it, play with it, watch it, and let it inspire.
Hope this finds you yielding,
David
Copyright © 2014 David Smith
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