Winter Stillness.

There’s no silence like that of a late winter night. It’s not muffled, as it’s so often described, though if you’re out on a late winter night you may be wrapped up in layers of wool and cotton. The silence of a late winter night is as clear and smooth as the surface of a frozen pool, and can be as sharp as the cracked edges of that same ice. Even the water in the air clings to the ground so that even a cloudy sky is deeply detailed. The stars are brighter, crystals shimmering. Jupiter directly overhead is like a lamp, and even Saturn, hanging just a few degrees away, is so distinct its rings seem like they must be visible even without a telescope.

In spring, summer, and even into late fall every night is alive all night. Crickets and katydids sing to each other, tree frogs blurp away on damp limbs, and as the night spins toward morning, even before the first hint of sun, birds start to chirp their annoyance that they’re awake before daylight. In winter there’s mostly silence. There may be the snort of a deer in the trees, the rustle of a possum or coyote, the cry of an owl. Lonely cars may hiss along the road. These sounds disappear as quickly as they come, swallowed by the stillness. It’s possible to stand outside on a late winter night, see a meteor flare across the sky, a whole world burning, and feel only the numbness. It’s possible to stand outside on a late winter night and believe that the world has dropped to absolute zero, the state where matter itself ceases all motion. It’s possible to believe the world is no longer living but is like the moon that slides like a scythe across the sky. It’s possible to stand outside on a late winter night and believe time itself has stopped.

There’s a folk tale of a man who went to the town square on a late winter night and confessed all his sins to the sky. There was only silence, his own voice muted by the stillness. When the spring thaw came his words dropped from the air, heard by everyone; for months they’d been frozen in place.

It’s only a story but I can stand outside on a cold winter night and believe it’s possible, that even words can freeze and hang in the air. There’s the threat of frostbite, of numbness, of hypothermia. I don’t want to stay out in it long but I can stand outside late on a cold winter night and feel there’s true magic in the world, that it comes to the surface when everything else is stilled.

I just wish it weren’t so damn cold.

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4 Comments

  1. mydangblog

    Beautiful, Christopher. When everything is completely quiet here, you can hear the snowflakes landing. So serene.
    mydangblog recently posted…Third Time Ain’t The CharmMy Profile

    Reply
    1. Christopher Waldrop (Post author)

      Being able to hear snowflakes landing is an amazing thing and I’ve experienced that too. You’ve just reminded me of Robert Frost’s “Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening”, specifically the lines “The only other sound’s the sweep/Of easy wind and downy flake.”

      Reply
  2. Ann Koplow

    Thanks for all the magic in this post, Chris, and all these beautiful words, dropping into our world.
    Ann Koplow recently posted…Day 4410: Keep GoingMy Profile

    Reply
    1. Christopher Waldrop (Post author)

      Thank you for breaking the stillness with this comment, Ann.

      Reply

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