Snowy Morning Memories
Feb 02, 2021 08:29AM ● By Dianna Flett
Everything in the town was closed. It was Christmas Eve 1984 and I was so far away from home. I was a young woman in a foreign land and I was homesick. The village I was standing in was beautiful; like the front of a holiday card. I remember thinking about how still everything seemed. In particular I recall the added layer of quiet from the blanket of fresh snow that was falling all evening as I walked. I’ve come to realize over the course of my lifetime, that sort of quiet is hard to find. When I walk into those moments now, I cherish them because they are fleeting. It's rare that I find those feelings of peace and serenity in my current reality.
I heard the snow crunching under my boots as I walked, and while there were streetlights glowing, everything was hard to see. The lights were almost hazy from the snow falling in perfect cadence and patterns around me. As I look at it in my mind’s eye, it was one of the most perfect nights I have ever experienced.
At midnight I went to the church where Silent Night was first performed in 1818. I listened as a small group of singers came out of the church and performed the song to a guitar accompaniment just as it was done the first time more than 166 years before that night. The world around me was cold, beautiful and literally frozen. The folks I stood with were holding candles with the little paper circles at the base to stop the wax from falling onto their gloves and mittens. It was a beautiful night of peaceful moments. I felt my mind quieting and expanding into the cold and snow around me. I was close to my family that night; which was odd. They were so far away.
I search for that quiet on snowy mornings like the one I walked out to today. When I am very lucky I can still hear the silence. Despite that I am in a different time of my life and carry noise borne of many miles traveled since that snowy Christmas Eve, I work hard to focus on the still and my own intent when the snow is fresh and the trees are covered with white.
I was thankful this morning for the snow. Just for a moment I was seeing and listening to the quiet with the mind of the young woman I was. While I don't want to join her or retrace her steps, it was good to be with her again.