Saturday, January 14, 2012

the peace of white

Late Friday evening, a small city. A deserted back street near the seafront. The blizzard is just winding down and a snow plough has just barely cleared the street. Huge piles of snow has been pushed to the sides, almost burying the parked cars and mine is of course one of these. It takes me twenty minutes to brush four inches of snow off it, another twenty at least to shovel away enough of the powdery stuff around the wheels. The wind is hurling snow into my face, my thick gloves are getting soaked through and the drift is more than knee-deep in places.  Normally, this is something I hate doing, especially being cold and wet.

But the silence of the winter night is deep, there is only the sound of the wind which is strangely soothing. I work myself into a meditative state. Snow is so earthy - nothing is as real, as present. You can't ignore it and drift into a daydream when it is covering you, chilling you and at the same time calming you with its purity.

No matter how much you might hate winter, it is a powerful experience to embrace the essence of it.

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