Cocooned
Going even deeper down
It’s deeper now, a cocooning so total it is as if the entire world is holding its breath. Snow piled 3 feet, 4, over 6 in some places. There is nothing one can do with a blanket this thick other than accept it. Bunker down. Go slow, sleep, and wait. There is a beautiful sort of acceptance to be found when there are no other options on the table. The brilliant white unifies everything, coating and covering.
This is the sort of environment where one plans ahead, stocking up on supplies. Firewood. Food. Patience. You don’t just pop down to the store. When I open the door, snow pours in. I shovel myself small pathways, but the snow keeps coming, and I am running out of places to put it. The totality of it is so thorough that I can’t even question it. Do you need to leave the bunker? That isn’t going to happen.
My friends from California text me. “It is 77 degrees today.” Such a thing seems patently absurd, ridiculous. Impossible even. After a lifetime in California, have I already forgotten? Was it always 77 degrees in Febuary and I just don’t remember?
Life adapts, no matter what. 2 years now in an environment that is snow roughly half of the year, and I have become a penguin. I am one with the ice. The trees are heavy, limbs decorated and hanging low. Layered and thick, holding their breath alongside me. We wait. It is beautiful, the waiting. A sharpness that is somehow simultaneously smooth, a pebble with a jagged edge.
It isn’t for everyone, being a penguin. The waiting doesn’t work for many. It works for me, though. I am learning lessons in patience and perseverance. I am dazzled.
Greetings Rain! My anticipation satisfied! A Winter Wonderland. A fascination indeed; one of awe and one of respect in the sense, nature is powerful. With this power in nature one can revel in it's beauty and at the same time remain aware of it's significance in life. Your mastery in weaving light, color and eloquence once again nourish imagination, inspiration and reality. This is your blanket or at least one them. Your poignancy is incomparable.
So, a return to memories. I realized to some degree the power of nature in the waist high snow in the Eifel Mountains and in the forested mountains near Alsfeld, Hesse Germany; north of Fulda and west of Bad Hersfeld. There was also a castle there with an restaurant owned by a Baron. I think you would have liked it there :)
Snow begins as Rain does. Fancy that. Besides, Penguins are Awesome! Thank you!