Otherworldly snow

Bacon sizzles and pops in my iron pan.  Alison shuffles behind me on the kitchen tiles in slippers that sound too large for her.  I look out of the back window at the falling snow, already coating the yard with white – broken only by the leaves I should have raked, now poking awkwardly through the white like casualties in my war with the shedding oak.

   Snow is not a welcome sight.  At least, to me.  But to our friends, who have traveled from Florida to experience winter, it is a delight.  I step outside for a moment, to try to see the snow through Floridian eyes. 

   I am reminded of two remarkable things about snow.  Visually, snow leeches out of the landscape its color, making sky and ground a familial pale gray.  Granted, there wasn’t much color beforehand, in the somber umbers of winter.  But a covering of snow makes every patch of hue – a cardinal in the tree, a neighbor’s green house – isolated and minimalized.

   Then there is the other subtraction: sound.  Silence also dominates, as if the falling flakes intercept each noise and weigh it to the ground.  I strain to catch any sound.  Chickadees in the hedge chitter as if to reward me.

   It is entirely appropriate on this, my first 8:18 post, to be reminded of the gifts that sound and color are.  We take so many things for granted.

Great Father, weaver of the world, what pleasures you scatter around us for senses that are engaged.  Overwhelming beauty, infinite variety abound.  Thank for sounds and sights.  And for the snow today, and that we have no place to go.  For the coziness of the house, for the anticipation of friends visiting, I am truly grateful.