Dearest Rachel –
I realize that this really doesn’t qualify as the ‘first’ snow of the year; we’d already seen a handful of flakes on Halloween (I’d even taken a picture with them suspended in air, which, to be fair, doesn’t convey the same effect as when you’re standing there with them falling – or rather, blowing – all around, but it’s the best I could do in terms of capturing the moment), but this is the first time there’s been enough that it sticks to the ground.
And is there ever. From the moment I first wake up and take a look outside, to the moment I get home from working the booth at church, well after midday, it didn’t stop snowing yesterday. And I’ll admit that I’ve no idea how far into the evening it continued, as I didn’t bother to leave the house after that – if there’s no need to, and I’m reasonably comfortable, what’s the point? But while it wasn’t falling heavily at any one time, it was doing so for more than long enough to actually accumulate this time around.
And it’s weird… this happens every year, but every time it does, it still manages to get one’s attention. There is the occasional driver caught by surprise, of course, who seems to have forgotten how to deal with this stuff on the road. Fortunately, being Sunday, there are fewer such drivers to deal with it (or at least, fewer in a hurry to get places that this sudden unfamiliarity poses a problem for them and those around them). Additionally, there isn’t that much on the road to really make for a problematic trip at the moment; while there’s enough to stick to the grass and the trees, the flakes that land on the pavement generally find themselves melting in short order. Everything looks like it’s already been shoveled without anyone having to actually do any work.
Which is where this letter comes in, as, despite the fact that we’d each seen a half century’s worth of such scenes (and always gotten quite tired of them by February and March – so much so, in fact, that I’m planning to get out of town for the rest of the winter by fairly early this coming February), when it happens for the first time in any given year, it still gives one pause, and the use to stop and take in the simple beauty of the moment.
It’s just an ordinary photo of an ordinary street, isn’t? It’s not even a particularly good photo – it’s only now that I’m seeing that my thumb got in the way of the lens. But you can still see the clean white snow, on the ground (but not on the road or sidewalks – the only white spots you’re seeing here are the flakes flying in midair as they descend) and on the upper part of every tree branch, as if the exposure to the sky coats each one in white. It’s the sort of calm, peaceful image of which picture postcards might be made of, except that this is the view from literally every suburban street… so we generally tend to ignore and overlook it.
For that matter, the freshly-painted trees get me to realizing how I forget about the image they project on any given day, if one would only take the time to look at them, as opposed to the road. Aside from a handful of saplings here and there, planted to replace the old ones taken down due to Dutch Elm disease or box elder bug infestations of years recently past, they stand in orderly rows on either side of the street, reaching a hundred feet into the air and stretching their branches over the road, meeting their counterpart planted on the opposite side to create a series of vaulted arches, making the road look like some natural (albeit planned) cathedral nave. Such things go unnoticed most of the time, but with the first snowfall, it all comes into focus as I take it in.
I suppose you paid more attention to these sorts of things than I did; I was usually too concerned about getting to work and the like, while you would let your eyes wander about as you would walk Chompers through these scenes. Then again, with nothing left behind by you talking about these sorts of things, I can only speculate as to whether you saw everything around you, or if you were just focused on him and his business. I wouldn’t fault you for the latter; it’s more in line with human nature, and it’s certainly what I would have done (and did do, in those final few months I was on my own taking care of him for you). But you always seemed to have more of an eye for these sorts of things, even if you didn’t always say so.
Maybe you left me with a bit of that eye for these details, now. Who knows?
In any event, keep an eye out for me (you know, the one you didn’t bequeath to me), and wish me luck; I’m going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 