You’re pretty sure winter isn’t meant to be brown.
Winter is meant to be red berries on bushes bent by pure white snow with stark black branches against crystal blue skies cloudless for miles. Cloudless for miles except for when it’s not and the sky is no longer an abyss but an embrace from an old friend and all the streetlights bounce reflect illuminate a perfect silent snowglobe, the snowglobe of the meant-to-be winter.
Meant-to-be, could-be, maybe even should-be, but isn’t. Cuz this winter be BROWN. Brown grass and brown leaves against brown mud of snow thawed too soon, or worse, snow that wasn’t even given a chance, because it rained all February.
So, you scoff when they say blizzard, because how could a blizzard ever happen now, your world is brown and blizzards don’t happen to brown. And why should you get your hopes up that eventually there won’t be brown even though there will always be brown.
And the storm comes and knocks branches from trees and blows over your garbage can and you think, this is the storm I expected, this is the storm I deserve. anyway, I think the street looks better full of my old shoes and coffee grounds, and yes, my car needed another dent, thank you, tree.
But that night, the wind stops, and the sky bends down, and wraps the world in its arms. And suddenly the clouds aren’t clouds but a dome, lit from within, brighter than you can believe, and the fluffiest flakes you’ve ever seen fall freely from who knows where since there aren’t clouds anymore just a perfect, luminous dome above you.
And you want to watch it snow, but you know that you shouldn’t, that it ruins the magic if you watch. So you shuffle off to bed like a kid at Christmas, wondering what the morning will bring.
And it snows and it snows and it snows, and suddenly the world changes from the world of is to the world of meant-to-be, could-be, maybe even should-be.
Could-be is a world of questions possibilities problems beauty. The world that might be, the world of what-if?
What if the streets are actually gone, and now there’s just unmarked white snow leading to unbounded adventures in this wild wonderful world, leading there, instead of my stupid boring old job?
What if my car is buried so deep, it will never see the light of day again, what if every car succumbed to the same fate, and now we have to walk to adventure, but hopefully not too far?
What if my kids are feral now, wild creatures who roam the vasty white not-roads, hunting in packs, searching eternally for a better snowball?
What if my partner really is this dazzling snow-flecked spectacle, free of worry, five foot three frame full of joy and bouncing playfulness?
What if every day was no school no work no worries just back aches from shovelling too much snow, snow that never stops falling in this ridiculous snow globe world. Who thought this was a good idea?
And you love this beautiful could-be world, but you know it’s not really your world, it’s just visiting. And even though you love its beauty, what you actually love is seeing your world made fresh, hearing new joy in your kids’ laughter, seeing old beauty in your partner’s smile that you knew was still there, but had been so hard to see in all that BROWN.
And you know that the snow can’t stay, because the only way for the snow to stay is to lose the rest of the beauty of your world, the beauty of the world in cycles.
So, you’re sad to say goodbye to the snow, and when it melts, you get mud, and maybe you even get stuck in the mud for a while. But eventually, the mud dries, and you see spring summer fall, and you’ll take your family camping trying to remember that could-be world of no streets and no cars just laughter and the beauty of your loved ones.
And maybe someday, that snow will come back to you, will find a way to say hi, a way for the could-be to become the is. After all, snow is water and water is life and life is lived here and now. So live here and now, and be patient.
Everything moves in cycles.
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