Peace, Be Still

We have had a longer, deeper snowfall overnight that has closed schools and kept our Daddy home for the day!  Here's to surprise holidays in the middle of the week, when everything is canceled!

The thing that strikes me the most about fresh snowfall is the quiet it brings with it.  And I don't just mean the lack of traffic noise because no one's out on the roads.  In some other, deeper way, life is muffled by this thick blanket of white that has fallen and covered the earth.  Like the tousled head of a sleeping toddler, buried beneath hair and blanket, life has paused from its endless energy and constant motion and found stillness. Peace. 

With no notice, no time to fill the empty square with events and appointments, we are granted the gift of a true day off.  And if not that---(homeschoolers are not unable to reach their school building on a snow day, after all!)---at least a morning or an afternoon of rest. Refreshment. Renewal. 

So today, as I gaze out my window at the blanket of white,  I wrap my hands around the warmth of my teacup and breathe deeply of this reality: 

"Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow" (Psalm 51:7)!

 

"Bird of Mouth"

Snow that amounts to anything and is profuse enough to whiten the ground is rare where I live.  This morning we awakened to such a blanket of white.  It is beautiful!

Clearly, the birds are also happy... happy with our backyard bird feeders on this snow day.  The word has gotten out--however birds share these sorts of things*--and we're the happening place to be!

 

 

All puffed up, trying to stay warm!

In other news on this fun snow day... (yes, even homeschoolers can have snow days...)


I had to make our big king-size bed around this remnant child, who had refused to vacate the warm family spot that all six of us had piled into when the alarms went off this morning!


The delicious breakfast our dad--who didn't have to go into work until 11:00--made us... pflintzen with filling and jam, bacon, and hot tea.  Yum!

 Homeschool on a cold snow day!

* My clever husband had called it "bird of mouth"--hence, the title of this blog post.  Whatever it was, we're happy that the snowfall sent all the hungry birds in town to our feeders!  Today I saw cardinals, finches (both house and yellow!), mourning doves, juncos, titmice, Carolina wrens, pine siskins, and red-breasted nuthatches, and a couple of species I don't even recognize. Our friendly chickadees and our lovely woodpecker stayed away today, for some reason.  They're home staying warm, I hope, like the rest of us!

How I Wish That It Would Snow

We don't get much snow where I live.  Occasionally we get a light dusting... every few years we get something big enough to play in...  Needless to say, snow is not a part of our winter lives.

I miss snow.  My in-laws used to live in the New England area, and our yearly winter trek up their way always involved snow.  Our little ones would play in it.  We would go skiing.  We would walk around and see the lovely New England landscape covered in a blanket of white.  It was glorious, and worth every bit of the trouble of finding waterproof boots and gloves for kids of four different sizes year after year.

But many years ago now, they moved down South, too, and our yearly Massachusetts trek has ended.  We've made it a couple of snow-filled times all the way to Vermont, but it is difficult in winter since my husband and I can't stay outside in a tent.  (Yes, we usually sleep in a tent for our Vermont visits since I'm allergic to the cats that lived so many years in his aunt's home!)

I miss snow.  I'm sure those friends who live with it all winter--and have to shovel and salt and dry out their worlds every day for months--are not loving it, but I do, and I wish we would get some.

So that's why I was so thrilled to discover the artifically-produced-but-still-real-deal snow that they had at Christmas Town this year at Busch Gardens Williamsburg.  (More on Christmas Town later, on another day!)  Right there in the middle of beautifully illuminated France, complete with lights set perfectly to reflect the dancing flakes coming down.  It was beautiful.  Magical.

So, there you have it.  I'm desperate enough for some snow to love the manipulated, manufactured stuff falling so light and lovely in the French village at the (also artificial) Old Country!

And so, I end with one of my favorite poems, "Velvet Shoes" by Elinor Wylie.

Let us walk in the white snow
           In a soundless space;
With footsteps quiet and slow;
           At a tranquil pace,
           Under veils of white lace.

I shall go shod in silk,
           And you in wool,
White as a white cow's milk,
           More beautiful
           Than the breast of a gull.

We shall walk through the still town
           In a windless peace;
We shall step upon white down,
           Upon silver fleece,
           Upon softer than these.

We shall walk in velvet shoes:
           Wherever we go
Silence will fall like dews
           On white silence below.
           We shall walk in the snow.