Tag Archives: snow
When it catches you
“The earth is covered…..and it is falling still in silence so deep that you can hear its silence. It is snow to be shoveled, to make driving even worse than usual, snow to be joked about and cursed at, but unless the child in you is entirely dead, it is snow, too, that can make …
Where snow is rare
“I’ve always felt lucky to live someplace where snow is rare, you know? It’s rareness that makes it so special.” ― Stephanie Perkins Unlike Perkins, I didn’t always feel lucky that snow was rare for me. As a kid I read books about other kids from all different eras, who lived where the snow piled …
The still ecstasy
“There is nothing in the world more beautiful than the forest clothed to its very hollows in snow. It is the still ecstasy of nature, wherein every spray, every blade of grass, every spire of reed, every intricacy of twig, is clad with radiance.” — William Sharp This isn’t the post I had scheduled for …
Showing off
“I’m lying in my room listening to the birds outside. I used to think they sang because they were happy. But then I learned on a nature show they’re really showing off.” — Jo Knowles So much for our romantic anthropomorphism. But for a bird, maybe showing off is a cheerful sort of thing to …
Filling the dark trees
Snow was falling, so much like stars filling the dark trees that one could easily imagine its reason for being was nothing more than prettiness. ― Mary Oliver I saw more snow last week than I’ve seen any week since we lived in Ohio, and maybe more than any week ever in March. It was hard to think of …
Dressed in snow
“It felt as though the whole globe was dressed in snow. Like it has pulled it on, the way you pull on a sweater. Next to the train line, footprints were sunken to their shins. Trees wore blankets of ice..” ― Markus Zusak Just when I thought we were in for a fairly mild winter, …
An echo from the past
Nothing is Lost by Noel Coward Deep in our sub-conscious, we are told Lie all our memories, lie all the notes Of all the music we have ever heard And all the phrases those we loved have spoken, Sorrows and losses time has since consoled, Family jokes, out-moded anecdotes Each sentimental souvenir and token Everything …
Nonetheless
Welcome, winter. Your late dawns and chilled breath make me lazy, but I love you nonetheless. — Terri Guillemets Even in summer, I love sleeping late. My aversion to getting up in the morning is much greater in the winter, when the cold weather makes a snug warm bed all the more appealing. Despite this, …
Different from the sum of its parts
“When I looked, I knew I might never again see so much of the earth so beautiful, the beautiful being something you know added to something you see, in a whole that is different from the sum of its parts. What I saw might have been just another winter scene, although an impressive one. But …
Different kinds of weather
“In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours.” — Mark Twain Until this year, I might have accused Twain of exaggerating with this statement. Now? Maybe not. It’s easy to forget that last spring seemed equally erratic at the time. I was searching …
Under the giving snow
“Under the giving snow blossoms a daring spring.” — Terri Guillemets I find it hard to believe that as I’m writing this (on March 7, two weeks before publication) I STILL see snow on the ground outside! It’s melting in places, but most of the grass is still covered with it, and those nasty-dirty drifts …
Ten thousand truths
“There are joys which long to be ours. God sends ten thousands truths, which come about us like birds seeking inlet; but we are shut up to them, and so they bring us nothing, but sit and sing awhile upon the roof, and then fly away.” — Henry Ward Beecher A year ago my post …
Some kind of recreational activity
“It is inhumane, in my opinion, to force people who have a genuine medical need for coffee to wait in line behind people who apparently view it as some kind of recreational activity.” — Dave Barry I know people who have a genuine medical need for coffee, and I’m not one of them. I have …
Repainting the landscape
“Nature has many scenes to exhibit, and constantly draws a curtain over this part or that. She is constantly repainting the landscape and all surfaces, dressing up some scene for our entertainment. Lately we had a leafy wilderness; now bare twigs begin to prevail, and soon she will surprise us with a mantle of snow. …
We need quiet
“Others inspire us, information feeds us, practice improves our performance, but we need quiet time to figure things out, to emerge with new discoveries, to unearth original answers.” ― Ester Buchholz Of all the seasons, winter seems most linked with quiet; short days, long nights, the silence of snowfall and the calming blank canvas of …
A white quilt
“I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says “Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.” ― Lewis Carroll Snow can seem brutal when we have to shovel it, …
Divine pleasures
“Surely everyone is aware of the divine pleasures which attend a wintry fireside; candles at four o’clock, warm hearthrugs, tea, a fair tea-maker, shutters closed, curtains flowing in ample draperies to the floor, whilst the wind and rain are raging audibly without.” ― Thomas De Quincey Before Jeff’s surgery in November, when he was disappointed …
The diamond-frosted clasp
“December, the diamond-frosted clasp linking twelve jeweled months to yet another year.” — Phyllis Nicholson While most of us associate December with the holiday festivities, there is also the winding down of the calendar year, and a sense of wonder about how fast the months flew by, whether we were having fun or not. I …
Permit yourself the luxury
“Winter is the time of promise because there is so little to do – or because you can now and then permit yourself the luxury of thinking so.” — Stanley Crawford Each year, I enter January with delusions about how much I will get done — I will clean out my closets, sort through old …
Excitement and peace
“It was the sort of storm that rarely happened…and the steady white flakes, the silence, filled him with a sense of excitement and peace. It was a moment when all the disparate shards of his life seemed to knit themselves together, every past sadness and disappointment, every anxious secret and uncertainty hidden now beneath the …
While time stands still
“I love snow for the same reason I love Christmas: It brings people together while time stands still.” — Rachel Cohn As I write this, snow is covering the ground for the second time in the past month. Two snows BEFORE Christmas? Unprecedented in the life of this southern woman. And very unusual for northern …
Earth’s immeasurable surprise
“Lambs that learn to walk in snow When their bleating clouds the air Meet a vast unwelcome, know Nothing but a sunless glare. Newly stumbling to and fro All they find, outside the fold, Is a wretched width of cold. As they wait beside the ewe, Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies Hidden round them, …
A happy thought
“It was a happy thought to bring To the dark season’s frost and rime This painted memory of spring, This dream of summertime.” – John Greenleaf Whittier Last Thursday, the evening before Jeff’s burial ceremony at Arlington, I opened our front door to family arriving from out of town and found a package on my doorstep. It …
Defeat Despair 