WINTER SNOW, WILL IT EVER GO?
No sooner had the words been published, in the last entry of Walden, than winter, feeling undoubtedly slighted for being critiqued as "toothless," had returned with a new vigor of snow and cold wind, ...... so poetic of comebacks and revenge, against those prognosticators thinking her retired and unresponsive; particularly with so much time remaining for her to play and decorate the landscape, before the spring arrives in earnest by late March.
Wise oldtimers, from around here, will tell you late-season snow is what rots the existing mantle, although I have no scientific proof of this at my beck and call. Presumably they are right, and this is one of a few more snowfalls, that will presumably reduce the existing canopy double-quick. Yet it’s hard to look at this most appealing of local scenes, attired so brilliantly in new snow, and think about anything as unpleasant in optics as "decay" or "rotting away." I suppose in a way, I would enjoy the sun instead, melting the existing icy burden, rather than needing more snow, to shovel of course, before we get to bare, mucky ground. In fact, there wasn’t all that much snow anyway, because I can still see the imprint of my boots from a stroll the day before. So it was hardly a major inconvenience to any one with a laneway or sidewalk to shovel. It’s at this time of year when even the snow out on The Bog appears duller, and with less sparkle, and a closer examination, with a clump in one’s hand, would reveal a considerable amount of dirt and other unidentified bits and pieces. The snow absorbs a lot of atmospheric impurities over a winter season. A lot of it is windblown and may contain everything from industrial pollution to granules from all our eroding asphalt shingles.
I love each of the seasons and I find no serious disadvantage to waiting a littler longer for spring’s triumphant return. Despite our family having one of the busiest and most stressful winters in decades, due to illness and unforseen circumstance, I have been so pleased to come home from unpleasant business, to walk these moonlit, snowy old woods......... that have given all of us comfort and pleasure for so many years here at Birch Hollow. It is but a small bit of hinterland amidst the urban environs yet it might as well be Algonquin Park, for all the generous respite and inspiration it provides us daily, as we watch over the birds flitting about in the tree-tops, the deer meandering the far ridge of the lowland, see the squirrels chasing one another through the shadows on the snow, and see friends and neighbors strolling with their children and pets, lost in the peace and enchantments of the Muskoka landscape. In our case, having been forced to contend with the sudden loss of a family member, just standing out on the brink of the hillside, looking down at the expansive lowland, and feeling the afternoon sun against our chests, our faces, and being a part of such a beautiful natural scene, has made us feel so much more at ease, and resolved to "soldier-on" as my father used to say. It is a healing place and a locale that has given us hope and comfort at our lowest, heart-sick moments.
Despite the recent accumulation of snow across this woodland, it is not enough to muffle the tell-tale sounds of the melt. All around me today, are the tiny invisible waterways working down from the elevation to The Bog, and there is gurgling now at the base of a giant leaning pine but I can not see the melt-water’s turbulent decline. There is more snow predicted, and possibly an event of torrential rain two days from now, as March officially assumes the helm of its earth. It may well be that this countryside is unburdened of its snow cover by the third week of March, if the temperatures rise as some sage individuals predict.
As always, even though I lament about the inconvenience of snow and cold, it will sadden me to watch this particular winter conclude. It’s a funny thing, this human nature, that we can actually become emotionally attached, to a time which has knocked us down emotionally, hurt us physically, and been otherwise injurious in one of many forms. Yet like saying farewell to an adversary, we must, at the same time, acknowledge that our lives have changed forever as a result of this imposed liaison; and strangely we can not help but wonder, like a lost, lonely soul, if we would feel its embrace ever again. So as much as this winter has been a burden, as time and events can burden us all in life, it has been a season like all others, in the cycle that will soon bring spring, then summer, fall, and winter again.......just as it will generate life, age and then demise, as we spin through the universe, in a blue, white, brown and green sphere, in that perpetual mystery begging the question..... "so what’s it all about?"
I shall consult my copy of Thoreau’s, "Walden Pond," to see if he had the answer.