On the first day of Spring, my wife pulled back the curtain in our bedroom at about 0730 to show me more snow than I think I’ve seen in months.
I wandered out into the frozen landscape with my Nokia 920 and snapped some pictures before I had to be logged in for work. The gallery below is an example of some of that adventure.
If you’ve read my blog before, you’ve probably inferred at least two things about me. The first being that I like north-y things. The second being that I’m very proud of my family and the legacy I inherit from them. The scenes in the pictures here capture both of those things.
There’s a comfort in snow that I find hard to explain. It’s silent, for one thing. I like the silence of an early morning snow-filled field. It allows me to hear my thoughts, experience my own existence, experience my living-ness. Silent to one sense, but noisy and shocking to others. The sun is shockingly brilliant in the morning even veiled behind steel-grey clouds. I couldn’t even see for the first five minutes outside. Even at night, it’s never really dark if there’s snow on the ground. Silent to my ears, shocking to my sight, stern to my sense of touch.
Snow reminds me of my fragility. Not because its own structure is delicate and crystalline, but in a real, non-poetic way. Snow tells me with it’s radiating cold that I am fragile. If it were not for my toque and gloves and boots and sweater, I would be dead within hours. Its softness belies a hidden ruthlessness that forces us in the north to be brutally honest with ourselves and with the environment in which we live. I appreciate that.
I appreciate that on the first day of Spring. A day where we normally start to think of birds and flowers, skimpier clothing, sex and babies. On this day nature told us, “No. I don’t think so. Don’t forget who you are and where you come from. Don’t forget your place in this system.”
So I took these pictures so I’ll always know exactly what my place was on March 20th, 2013 when nature told us not to forget.
