It’s a gray day that feels like snow: a gray day that almost needs snow. We’ve fallen hard, it seems, into December drab, that season of bleary gray transition that needs the mitigation of snow to brighten it.
There’s a reason why folks long for the cheer of a white Christmas. In addition to the nostalgia and romance inspired by countless songs and greeting-card landscapes, a white Christmas brings a touch of brightness to a world largely lacking color and light. After the leaf peepers and the glowing, multicolored objects of their peeping have gone, what remains are gray days when the sun is noticeably on its way toward setting by mid-afternoon. Snow isn’t simply pretty; it’s like a reflective safety vest the earth dons on her darkest days so we can still see her–and still find light for our souls–after the sun has sunk. In a season starved for light, snow helps reflect and thus preserve every last ray, an essential kind of recycling.
Reggie is hunkered down, sleeping deeply; he knows the proper response to darkening days is hibernation, a diligent curling into oneself to rekindle every last spark of inner warmth. We humans, on the other hand, eschew hibernation, turning busy as the sun stoops in seasonal decline and rushing to buy presents and prepare for holiday celebrations as if merely moving will be enough to stave off sluggishness.
Yesterday at the grocery store, I saw a terribly ill-conceived ad that offered shoppers the promise of “Your holiday list for less”…except the design and font made it look at first glance like it said “Your holiday listless.” During a season when listlessness threatens to dominate, this ad unwittingly communicates the entirely wrong message. What we need on gray days isn’t more listlessness; what we need during the depths of December drab is the verve of holiday merriment and energizing inspiration of seasonal scents–pine sap and cinnamon, hot chocolate and nutmeg–to stir us from our stupor and drag us from the toasty cocoon of quasi-hibernation.
What we need during the depths of December drab, I hate to say, is the sight of snow to brighten our palette.
I took these photos yesterday, when it was sunny. The first photo illustrates how unseasonably mild it’s been: warm enough for houseflies to bask on fallen leaves. Today, it’s cold and rainy…with a forecast of snow.
Hoarded Ordinaries 
Dec 7, 2009 at 11:17 am
Kurt Vonnegut wrote somewhere that he thought there should be 6 seasons; summer, fall, locking, winter, unlocking, spring. If so, we are definitely in the season of “locking”.
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Dec 7, 2009 at 12:44 pm
I agree what we need is snow to brighten our landscape. I miss the light of the south but not the heat, and I wish for snow that shovels itself, as I love the effect but alas I enjoy leaf raking much more than snow shoveling……….
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Dec 7, 2009 at 1:14 pm
I like this idea of renaming the seasons, Frank, although I’d argue that New England doesn’t really have a “spring,” just a period of mud between the snow and the black flies!
Chris, this weekend’s snow was PERFECT in that it brightened things up but somehow miraculously melted from streets & other black-topped surfaces: the closest we come to snow that shovels itself.
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