White Noise

They say Eskimos have many different words for snow. A different term for every subtle shift in texture and presentation. This is a sign of a people who have spent a fair amount of time with the white stuff and take it seriously. I hope they don't stop there. I hope they pay as much attention to the different feel each winter day has throughout a season. The way those unique, individual days can shift the consciousness and free the imagination. Give me that same variety of description for the tone of a winter afternoon. Let the language have the same kind of field day when addressing a winter twilight.

I know all 107 different varieties of winter days-- Midwest varieties, mind you, not Northeast or Rocky Mountain--I was taught them from an early age. The Midwest has always had its own peculiar brand of winter. Those of us who grew up here know the offerings well. The different statements in every shift in temperature, in lighting, sky color, cloud formation, wind speed. the way the old snow ages, the way new snow replenishes. It all has its story, its hum. More importantly its ability to send the memory spiraling back to one's youth, when winter days were longer and more lustrous, when snow and ice were a child's companions.

Do you see, as I do, the days that have a fierce cantankerous edge, that growl with agitation? They're the days that teach us weather is not here to be a friend, but rather, some otherworldly creature we must learn to live with, a foreigner, an adversary. I have grown to love such winter days not for what they are, but for what they make a home: an oasis, a womb. The inside of a house on a bitter winter morning is something no one in any tropic port can ever hope to understand. It is a life-giving retreat, a divine blessing.

Do you know the winter days that are whispers, calling the body to come out and experience a respite, a break from the harsh winds? Temps climb to the low 30's and the air grows still. The sun in the western sky doesn't just set, it exits reluctantly, and in its path leaves a warm glow of orange and red. When emptying the trash, I stop and linger on these days. When parking the car and walking to the front door, I slow down. When walking the dog, I change the pace, alter my course. When staring out the kitchen window I fall back on thoughts that have been set aside, left in cold storage. I get wistful; I long for friends who've fallen by the wayside. Is it all from the weather? I don't know, but weather is the trigger.

I'm intrigued by days that few embrace, the gray languid days where the old tattered snow yearns to blend with the slate-gray skies, as plumes from city smokestacks fill the gaps. Citizens take their cues from the dull hues and move listlessly. The world appears as a monotone industrial back lot. Even here, however, there is something to appreciate. Color. When it appears it's tantalizing. Around the corner comes a white-haired woman with a copper jacket and yellow scarf. A Red Merle Australian Shepherd trots by with metallic-blue eyes, a black man with a jade earring leaves a coffee shop. These colors would hardly be noticed on a July afternoon when Minnesota pretends it's that tropical port. But in the gray of winter, choosing color is a potent consideration. Don't give me Manhattan black on black. Not in mid-February when the winter is dragging and the colors of May are too far off to imagine.

Of course there is a kind of winter day that is as sweet and joyous as any spring dawn. That's the day when the fresh snowfall from the night before is met with a blue cloudless sky at sunrise. Temperatures climb to the mid twenties, with no wind, the world is clean, the air crisp, the snow sparkles in the sun, branches hold curtains of shining white, people smile, there's energy in every expression. We know spring is coming, it always comes, but now there's no rush, not with such a vista before us. Music is in the air. There are no two colors sweeter together in nature than the fresh white of the snow and the clear deep blue of the sky. You see it mimicked in the summer with the blue in a glistening lake and the white in the billowy clouds above. This is a trumpet blare from the heavens. One cannot help but answer it with a passionate embrace.

So here's to language, and memory and the theater of seasons. Here's to the palette of the gods. Here's to the people of the north and the parade of winter reflections in their weary eyes, and here's to the coming spring with its own signature dance, its own metaphor, and its storehouse of reverie. May we find the words to capture it all.