Let’s Talk! – Winter’s Quiet

It’s a quiet day in spring as I ponder my friend Tyrean Martinson’s next prompt – and invite you to switch off your screens and ponder yourselves. “Winter’s Quiet” is maybe a bit unusual to think of this time of year. On the other hand – maybe it will make some sense, after all.

When I came over here and heard I wasn’t to expect snow in winters on Puget Sound, I was very disappointed. Winter simply HAD to have this magic for me. So, imagine the happiness when on my very first Advent Sunday, during a walk in the Nisqually Reach, the skies opened and hurled down about an inch of fluffy flakes over the next few hours. Bliss! But that was as much as I thought we’d ever get in the Lowlands.

Ever since, we have experienced quite a few little Snowmaggedons where we live. It usually starts slowly and steadily, in the mid-afternoon hours. First, the lawn gets a soft layer of powdered sugar. Then the fences get capped. Traffic slows down and finally ceases. The air starts smelling incredibly clear, clean, crisp. All sound is swallowed up by the fluffiness that is coming down in a steady whirl.

By morning, the earth is covered by at least a foot of snow. The tree limbs are laced with white matter. The bushes are covered thickly. There are the prints of teensy bird feet and of squirrel paws on our patio and in the front yard. Our street stays quiet. No cars are driving past. No human beings are venturing outside. The only things in motion are birds and squirrels searching for food, smoke rising from the chimneys, more snow falling from the sky. I feel perfectly cozy inside with a sudden urge to bake and cook comfort food, sit by the window and watch the thrushes and juncos at our bird feeder, and maybe step out far enough to catch some of the flakes with my tongue.

No sounds. Immaculate whiteness.

Switch to spring. Mornings are a symphony orchestra of bird voices. Cars hum in shortly after. Sirens of emergency vehicles merge in. Parks are full of people, merrily screaming children. Buds are bursting into blossom everywhere. It’s a cacophony of sensual impressions, only interrupted when it rains. Then it is THAT sound that overlays everything but can’t blot everything out. Not like snow does.

I wonder if – when stressed out by the whirlwind life we are all leading in one way or another – the thought of winter’s quiet could calm us down. Just if we imagine the calm, the coziness, the cover that snow brings to everything. And if – when we are sad and frustrated – the thought of the rush of spring could stimulate us if only we pictured it in detail, too.

Winter’s quiet on a quiet spring day … Though I’ve had enough of this year’s long winter, just picturing the utmost beauty of a snowy day makes me smile. There is so much in Nature that speaks to our soul at any time … if only we let it happen.