White World

So for the first time in years I woke up today and my world was completely white. Last year was brown and wet as I spent the winter in Ramadi, Iraq. I went to the front of the house and gazed out past the icicles hanging from my window coverings, and the yard was white. The streets, though smashed and scraped harshly by snow plow drivers who woke up energetically before the sun, were still white and icy.   

I drove to work slow, enjoying the once again familiar play of white snow at different depth perceptions: the tiny flakes clinging to my windshield before getting swept away, the sloppy wet snow being grinded and spun up by 18-wheelers going too fast on the interstate, and the gorgeous white embroidery of snow blanketing the Wasatch Mountains. There is no denying it - the mountainous horizon is  absolutely beautiful here in Salt Lake City.    I have a pretty good view from my office. I can see a huge chunk of the Wasatch Mountains in the east, so after 2:00 or so the light from the declining sun in the West shines on them. It's nice. More than once today I was on the phone and gazing out past the snow covered fields, past the deer spending the afternoon exploring those fields, past the grey vein of Interstate 15, guiding travelers south to Vegas, or north to Montana, and the snow on the mountains struck me as a conscious thing. 

   I imagine the individual snowflakes floating towards the earth, having already been recycled as water this past spring, exuberant to be in this frozen form, enjoying the view, clustering together with other flakes, hoping not to land on that big black pick-up, or on the sidewalk at the bus stop, or on an arbitrary spot on the street, no - they want to land in the remote fields, on the cold side of the mountain, at the very top of the ski resort, or at least in the child's mouth who's red-cheeked face is framed by colorful mittens as she holds her hands up to the sky, smiling wide, filled with joy and excitement, trying to guide errant snowflakes into it. Among snowflakes, landing in a child's mouth is one of the finest ways to travel thorugh the cycle of life. 

I look at the mountains and I see the collective effort of the white snow. If you're a snowflake, you hit the ground and begin working. You press up against your fellows, becoming one big piece of ice. You blanket the shape of the earth and enjoy the warmth. You try not to think about green things like chlorophyll or the process of photosynthesis, though you are aware of them - they reek of warmth, growth, melting. You know the winter will end and you'll enjoy the ultimate ride of your life- the cumulative slide of snowmelt. You just want to sit tight and do your duty with honor, and you will yourself not to become a boot print or a tire track or yellow snow. But you must admit, regardless of the chaotic stories you heard from your granddad about avalanches, you long to be a part of one. You sense the metamorphosis as the huge spanning continent of snow that you are part of melts slightly in the golden sun, smoothing out, creating bright optical illusions for that solitary figure wearing a camouflage uniform, across the way, past the grey interstate, framed by a single window in a big red building, talking on the phone and staring at you. You sense him there, thoughtful,  across the great expanses of this white world.

And if you were that snowflake you might even read the daydreams in his eyes.

"O Winter! ruler of the inverted year, . . . I crown thee king of intimate delights, Fireside enjoyments, home-born happiness, And all the comforts that the lowly roof Of undisturb'd Retirement, and the hours Of long uninterrupted evening, know." -Willaim Cowper

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