And the Power of Silence
So that little curiously adorable thing with their heads that some animals do is not in fact a nod to curiosity at all. (Nor does it have to do with the intonation of how you say the word “treat” “walk” or “outside”. Those ears and eyes are dialing in the cues as they turn their head left, right, and left again. It’s adorable yes, and it is also a necessity to locate lunch down there under the snow. It is the power of being in the moment.
I took a detour yesterday with the sole intention to visit a favorite winter birding spot. I didn’t see a single bird in the field, but I was blessed with 5 minutes of silence amid the frore landscape. No traffic noise, no airlines whooshing overhead, not even a drop of wind…the only sound was my car. I immediately turned off the climate and let the apricity shower down on me. The sun reaches down into my bones I swear. If I listened long enough, perhaps I could have heard some movement of mice and meadow voles in their subnivean underworld, but likely my hearing is not THAT good. That is only a feat fit for a fox.
I adore the cold. There I said it. The blue sky, the chill that obliterates the skin heaving a blow straight to the bones. I find it refreshing. While it takes twice as long to get out the door and remember to cover all exposed extremities, the effort yields a peace in frozen air. What I love even more is the way a good snowfall silences everything. Each and every fallen flake an air pocket that sucks the sound waves away like the sea steals back away each crashing wave back into the ocean. Silence is not something we hear very often.