It’s a strange silence. It’s a more sure silence. I can hear nothing. Winter. Deep winter. Darker nights bringing a more cutting chill. But it is silent in a way that is more silent. The trees are bare, standing tall and brittle, but firm and rooted. The colors seem to blend into one neutral shade and the snow blankets everything with quiet. My boots crunch and toss the powder around as I walk. The air is clean and sharp; it fills my lungs with what feels pure and unsoiled. I stand in one spot and turn slowly about. It is a strange silence that welcomes me and keeps me here. The snowdrifts are high and soft. They wall me in and keep me stayed. Footprints tell of who has been wandering the yard late at night and how close they came to the house. There is silver silence here, mysteries kept hidden for now, locked up and left untold. Things burrowed and waiting. Lifelessness, but expectant. Dead, but slowly being restored. Winter prunes the earth. It wipes away the dross and stirs a tale below of new things not quite birthed. The stems of the trees seem hollow and fragile. The long, delicate reeds are trapped in tunnels of snow and thin ice. There is a different kind of beauty here. There is a groaning, a wanting, and life just below that lies dormant, but alive. Gary Schmidt describes it well, “Winter is a time of stillness, darkness, and death, and while we know intellectually that this season will pass into the birth of a new year and then into spring, instinctively we hunker down, peering fearfully into the twilight toward a shadow whose shape we cannot discern” (Winter 5).
We do know what is ahead. We live by seasons and build our lives around the expectations of predictable change. We anticipate one while we endure the one we presently reside in. We look forward and fail to unlock the beauty of the season at hand. We especially run from Winter, for with it comes darkness and damp cold. We stay locked in our homes and pull in closer to our own skin. We await the explosion of the sun and the outpouring of warmth and play. But Winter is our despised season, strengthening our muscles of endurance and hopefulness. We count it as a cost. We wonder when it will pass by. We stay in our beds, cover our feet, talk less, isolate more and scratch off the days on the winter months of the calendar. Winter is slow and lonely. Or is it?
We keep a fire going and gather around it. I can’t quite sit near enough. Growing up our home was big and often cold. Our main room was highlighted by an old, cast-iron, wood-burning stove. The door was kept closed and the room became a haven of warmth and memories. The wooden walls and enormous windows made for an ideal landing place during the sweeping winds of winter. There we were truly warm. Forecasts held our attention for hours at a time. The tension built between cancellations allowing a late night and much needed sleep for early school mornings. We waited, keeping the outside spotlights on, looking for the first fallings of snow. The side porch held piles of wood brought over from the barn and staked high and covered to stay dry. We lived off of that wood in such cold temperatures. We lived in that room…watching the snow fall all around us.
