I’m sitting in a coffee shop with my daughter-in-law. She is working on writing a book. I am working on writing. I used a prompt, a poem and a painting about snow, and I reminisced about living in a place where we would occasionally get snow in the winter, and even more occasionally it would stick, upending our plans for the day…and once for an entire week!
I am a product of long corridors, empty sunlit rooms, upstairs indoor silences, attics explored in solitude, distant noises of gurgling cisterns and pipes, and the noise of wind under the tiles. Also, of endless books. ~C.S. Lewis in Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life
I used to love snow days.
The accumulating flakes frosting the ground, the trees–piling deeply, persistently sticking together in a campaign to expunge dreary grays and browns and dingy greens from the world. Expelled from heavy burdened skies these snowflakes looked the same to my hopeful eyes (are they really all different from one another?).
I anxiously watched the thermometer hover between melting and freezing, willing it downward so the snow could deepen, mysteriously muffling the world with pure if temporary beauty. I welcomed its interruption to my mundane life, slowing me down, imposing a change I did not choose, a change in my routine: permission to stop and notice beauty or to rest and read and reflect.
If the power went out, I was not disappointed, even though the toilets were a challenge to flush. But the warmth of candles and the wood stove added to the ambience of the day, making me ponder whether I would welcome these elements as charming artifacts if my daily existence actually depended on them. No matter. It didn’t and I did find them charming for the brief time in which I did depend on them…and I look back on that fondly.
Too often now I resent interruptions, dependent on conveniences, expecting them to sustain me, expecting to be comfortable, comforted by privileged sameness. But I sometimes wonder if this has made me brittle, unable to breathe deeply and to accept surprises as a gift rather than an intrusion in a carefully curated life.
My narrow boundaries prevent magical moments such as unexpected snowfall with its possibilities of finding warmth and joys in new ways. My comfort zone keeps me artificially warm and safe. But I don’t make snow angels anymore.
