Open Window
Last night’s respite from midsummer heat gave us the excuse to turn off the air-conditioning and throw open the windows to the night air.
Fans whir, crickets sing, a faint smell of loamy earth wafts through the house. By the middle of the night the fan has sucked in enough cool air that I pull the comforter up around my chin.
It’s the best kind of chilly, air that is moist and moving and full of sounds and smells. I’ve missed it this summer.
A Change of Scene
Darkness in the morning. Rain steadier than what I thought we’d get today. Everything left out on the deck: wooden rockers, chair cushions, one very soggy beach towel. For weeks the sun has ruled; there’s been no question about it. Every day a sunny day. And now today, something different. A new game in town. It’s refreshing. As long as it doesn’t last.
Gratitude and Ground Fog
A drive home across the mountains. No music, no news. Just the road and the ground fog, great swirling gobs of it. For more than an hour it rose from the earth, a sigh of gratitude, a bit of yogic breathing. It seemed as if nighttime was shedding its long robe, tossing it off in the first light of morning.
Clearing the Air
Yesterday we had the first big thunderstorm of the season. The sky darkened, lightning flashed, the wind came up. There was that last-minute dash to bring in laundry air-drying on the deck. I can remember rushing to rescue an entire load from the clothesline when I was a kid. Pulling off the pins and tossing them into a bag, then running into the house, my arms full of sun-crisped sheets, just as the first fat drops fell. I had to leave for an appointment yesterday in the middle of the downpour so I missed the mid-storm coziness, being safe in the dark house while sheets of rain sweep the street. The thunderstorm is the central drama of summer. The air afterward so fresh you want to gulp it.
Reflections in the Rain
I woke up this morning to the sound of an old friend. It was rain, liquid precipitation, that which does not need to be shoveled. It runs off in rivulets; it takes care of itself. It is also taking care of the snow, what’s left of it. Only the parking lot mountains remain.
I walked out on the deck and tiptoed through the puddles. Cold and clammy, they shiver in the breeze. If snow is a pillow, rain is a mirror. It glistens in the dull light; it has a life of its own. Unlike the snow, it reflects the world back to us.
Black Ice
I’m not an ice skater, so when I hear the words “black ice” I don’t think of a calm skate on a frozen pond. Instead I imagine the skid mark, the tire tracks off the road. What is it about black ice that strikes terror in my heart? It’s the stealth, isn’t it? Fearing something that you can’t see. It’s the ordinariness of the ice, the way it poses as a puddle but turns out to be something more, something sinister. Black snow isn’t good either, of course, but at least you know what you’re getting — the fumes of a thousand internal combustion engines, the grit of countless plow-gouged roads. Black snow coats the roadside mounds and stands in sharp contrast to lawns of untouched white. But black ice is invisible; it’s felt before it’s seen. I drive cautiously when black ice is about; the curves of Fox Mill that are normally such a joy to lean into, I slog through slowly these days. And let’s not even mention how I shuffle along suspiciously shiny sidewalks. Black ice makes me walk like an old woman.
White Out
This snow comes in with a roar and a whoosh, as a fierce wind blows from the west and the flakes fly sideways. Last week’s deluge was relentless but silent. Today’s is loud and dramatic. It’s a storm with more sound than picture, the kind where pioneers perished a few yards from their cabins because they’d lost their way. I have a sudden hankering to read Willa Cather, to tie a rope from our house to our car. I think of the power of the white out, not the correction fluid (which covered mistakes and offered a fresh start back before computers made it almost obsolete), but the white out of nature, which obscures and overwhelms.
As I sit here writing and listening to the sound of the wind and the trees beating against our windows, I hear another sound, a sound we’ve been waiting for these last five days but haven’t heard. It’s a snow plow, or, more accurately, a front-end loader, clearing our street (finally) in the midst of a blizzard. It’s taking a while, since neighbors are offering coffee and breakfast and brownies. (We’re a congenial lot here in Folkstone.) And it seems a fruitless occupation since the snow is blowing back over the road as quickly as they can move it away. Then again, maybe it’s just wishful thinking. On some level I want to stay marooned. I was getting used to the isolation. The white out is fine by me.
On Foot
This morning a neighbor called us early. She lives on the corner and was going to the store to load up on groceries. Did we need anything? It’s been four days since we’ve been out in the world so I asked for milk and bread and tea. Our food supplies may be dwindling, but neighborliness is in abundant supply.
So, too, is foot travel. With more than two feet of snow clogging our unplowed street and another ten to twenty inches on the way, hoofing it is the only way to go. So into our supercharged suburban world comes a much needed pause. We stroll, we trudge, we slip and slide. We take in the white world at three miles an hour.
Snow Path
Our wide suburban street has shrunk to a single footpath. Why do I find a curious freedom in this restriction? It is, of course, an adventure and won’t wear well with time, but right now I find it liberating. This little path reminds me of how many major highways began, first a beaten trail, then a dusty lane, next a paved road that’s widened to two lanes, then four, then eight. What began as a part of the landscape ends up destroying the landscape. I often try to imagine what our neighborhood was like a hundred years ago. The snow has made this easier to do.