First snowfall, 2009

About 2 inches, thick and heavy yesterday but now melting away.

For me, snow announces the season of Quiet. There was no wind yesterday – so we had a classic snowfall, and, like Tim said once, you could listen to the quiet. Snow creates quiet: there is very little sound of snow hitting the ground, the car, or the roof, but there also seems to be a deep, deep quietness that is unknown at any other time. My uninformed mind believes that falling snow breaks up the air’s ability to carry sound. Probably not the scientific reason at all.

But snow brings other kinds of quiet. While snow is falling I’ll hear car engines as cars drive by, but no road noise. Once there’s a lot of snow on the ground, the road noise is greatly diminshed all the time.

Snow quiets the landscape. No more does the lawn shout “Mow me!” No more does the garden shout “Come look at me!” or “Weed me! Clean me up!”. The cows move more slowly, as finding grass to graze is more difficult. Instead of trotting around sunlit summer pastures, the horses stand in the sun, absorbing the warmth, not throwing any of that warmth away by exercising. (Unlike the dogs, who seem to think that a light snowfall is the perfect excuse to tear around, barking.) Farming chores move into barns and garages. House projects that require outdoor effort get put away until the spring.

Last night (12/05), on A Prairie Home Companion, Garrison Keillor said “we may complain about winter, but we need snow. We love snow because it is a blanket, and that blanket is comforting somehow.” A blanket of snow makes the blanket on my bed expand as far as I can see. The snow in my yard is the same as the snow in my neighbor's pastures. It's the same snow that is in the woods that I can see miles away. My winter snow blanket is also my neighbor's, and theirs is shared with me. We are more part of the land in winter than in any other season.

In many ways, as Clement Moore wrote, it’s time for “a long winter’s nap”*. The quiet of snow reminds me that I should use the time under winter’s blanket to find quiet in my life. Not that I should do nothing, but that I should settle in by the woodstove, find a book, take out my knitting, and do the reading, thinking and reflecting that I say I never have time for. A nap is not a bad idea, either.

"A Visit From Saint Nicholas"