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Three accounts of snowstorms - the first a brief E-mail exchange between two people who live here! :
Alice: Looks like we're in for a good 'un, blizzard to boot - mebbe winter's last hurrah!
SNOW DANCE
Television newscasters look for sensation. They find it even in beautiful old-fashioned winter storms. "Motorists are advised to stay off the roads! Food shortages are probable! Be prepared for electrical outages!" and on and on with threats of doom are all messages delivered by the media. Those of us who live in New England live here partly because there is still a possibility that we might have a good old-fashioned storm or two sometime during the winter. This year we were blessed with several. This evening is perhaps one of the most spectacular.
The accumulated snow in Ashfield is already piled high from the other two storms of this month. This afternoon, almost on schedule, the latest storm began to softly and steadily spread gazillions of nickel and dime sized flakes through the three-dimensional space between the clouds and the already white world we have been living in. Like a cat who wants to play, a snow flake twists and turns, sometimes sails in circles, maybe even going almost as high as back to where it started before it begins to fall once more. Eventually it reaches its resting place with other flakes that got there at an earlier time.
Each flake sticks to whatever it first lands on, and remains there until the wind picks it up and sends it on a second, usually more straight-forward journey. Eventually so many flakes have landed on the surface in sight, the invasion has made a fairyland that is quiet, comforting, fresh, and feeling warmer than it did before the first flakes fell. It always gives me a feeling of being safe and cared for.
When all but a few surfaces of the landscape are blocked out with whiteness, my eyes tell me I am part of a three-dimensional dot-to-dot drawing that really would be less meaningful if the lines were drawn between the dots. For a few hours or maybe a day or two the world is calm and quiet. -- People have stopped racing around, being noisy and thoughtless and in a rush to get somewhere -- anywhere -- but not here.
The radio and television hourly warn everyone to stay off the roads. But you can really enjoy this gift of a quiet day if you just do not turn on the radio or the television. Schools are closed. Government workers are not to report to work. Stores do not bother to open. Everyone but the plowing crews is given a FREE DAY. Children and athletic adults go skiing, sledding, snowshoeing or building snowpeople. Lots of people do not know what to do with this gift of a free day. I make sure the birds that eat from my windowsill feeder have food above the snow level, take a walk, shovel paths from place to place and think of children's stories about this wondrous season that were read to me when I was very small.
When the roads are passable once more I drive my car on back country roads just to expand my pleasure in this wonderful new world that only a few days ago was my own neighborhood. Hill Road and Murray Road are more like bobsled runs than the country roads I am used to. The snow plows have been by often, scraping snow from the road and piling it in banks on both sides. Now the road itself, still white, is hardly wide enough for an oncoming car and me to pass one another. The banks of snow on both sides of the road block all views other than the sky. The picket fence of ancient maple trees still lines the west side of Dirt Hill Road. Last week there were sap buckets hanging on all those trees. Today, not a bucket is in sight. Thanks to the storm, all buckets are now snug beneath a snow blanket and will not be seen again until the beginning of mud season.
It is all so beautiful I wish you could be here to enjoy it along with me. But most of all, I would like to hear a weather report saying, "A winter snow dance is coming to New England. Schools will be closed, government workers are to stay at home until further notice. Everyone is advised to take a deep breath, relax, enjoy and be thankful for this most beautiful gift that nature is about to bestow upon you."
One rainy night a few weeks ago I was on my way home from a meeting in Shelburne Falls. As I drove over the wet black pavement my new winter treads sang loudly accompanying the rhythm of the windshield wipers and the staccato dance of raindrops pelting against my steel protection. I was reminded of the spring concert my son, Dick, and the other three principals of the Holyoke Symphony Orchestra gave at one of the Greenfield midweek lunchtime concerts. For their Bach Contata of the day, a Spanish tap dancer did her fast footwork to that great classical music and stole the show. I laughed as I remembered.
Subtly, the rain turned to big snow drops that were far more gentle to the ear, but looked like a million tracer bullets coming from a line of automatic rifles all aimed at me. They splashed against their target and were quickly pushed into ridges of slush at the ends of the wiper arcs.
By the time I reached Main Street in Ashfield, snow had covered the ground, most tree branches and the roofs of buildings. The street was white and hard to distinguish from the fields and front lawns. My rear-view mirror showed me the slushy snow tread-prints of where I had been. It was eight o'clock. Ashfield was asleep. Only the street lights and I were awake to realize we were in the heart of that very special quiet, cozy place a snowstorm sometimes grants the winter lover.
I wound down my window and breathed the cold damp air. Winter had come early. There were still lots of leaves on most of the trees. If that heavy snow continued, there would be much tree damage by morning. I was almost pleased to return to rain before reaching South Ashfield.
The next morning I took my early-morning walk on wet and puddled Hill Road. Looking into the puddles I saw colorful upside-down trees dancing on the water ripples. I felt better about what the storm damage might be in Ashfield, for the leaves were almost at the point of being countable. They certainly were twinkling as individuals and few enough for me to once again become friendly with the superstructure of their summertime hosts. I was then on Murray Road loving the almost bare bones of the woods.
I was beginning to think about a dry spot to sit awhile and count leaves, when a blast of Canadian cold wind hit the nearby trees and me. The branches swayed. The leaves twisted and struggled before they let go and flew away from their lifeline. Few, if any headed for the ground. They came toward me, then gently headed skyward and around in circles going higher and lower, then high again as if they too were part of a symphony with the wind and maybe the early morning sun. A symphony not so much for my ears as for my spirit. Were all those leaves dancing in a sphere with me somewhere in the center? I found myself circling down the middle of that wooded section of Murray Road feeling as if I were light and flexible, a very real part of this special ode to autumn.
Want more about fire and ice? Move to the volcanoes and blizzards page for some historical perspectives on the subject.