The Hiss of Snow

It keeps snowing, lightly but insistently, like being in a snow globe somehow shaken without our knowing it. And the bitter cold means it all stays. It's always hard, these first few mean days of winter. But it grows familiar, and December's cold will be January's warm.

I haven't been out much on foot, save to shovel the walk, push the snow to the side, really. But I remember how it can be to walk in it, so long as one's feet and hands are dry, and one's trunk warm under layers of cloth. I recall a winter years ago when I took a long afternoon walk in a forest reserve on a gray December day. I was alone in terms of humanity, but not life. I glimpsed deer, rabbits, squirrels, and maybe a coyote, and the birds, and I detected unseen others. But what I remember most is something I never expected. As I followed a long winding curve from grassland into the woods, it began to snow, large, gentle flakes, steady and even because of the lack of wind. Then I heard it. Heard the hiss of snow as it sifted through brown leaves and branches, and settled the ground, a sound I never knew existed, and would never have known had I not left the common-sense world of windows and warmth.

Though I often forget how big mysterious and wonderful a world it is, I've been blessed with these interstitial inklings of it. And I am grateful.