Going Quiet

I don’t know about you, but there’s something about being snowed in that appeals to me as much as the pristine beauty of freshly-fallen snow.  While others pray for the snow to take a different route, I always hope we get one good snow during winter.  Maybe I wouldn’t be so quick to feel that way if I had to drive in it, or had to shovel a driveway and sidewalk—which I don’t—so I was excited about the forecast for Snowmageddon last week.  

I went to the grocery store to buy some essentials a day before the storm would hit.  In the check-out line, shoppers discoursed about the coming snow, and I felt like a child on Christmas morning, anticipating unknown gifts.  The possibility of being snowed in filled me with energy as I came home to put away my purchases and hunker down. 

As the snow fell, it covered all things dried-up and brown, dressing nature in a white wedding gown. I opened the door to the back deck and watched the snow come down, down, down—minute by minute, hour after hour.  Nature went quiet; it didn’t make a sound.  Yet it spoke to me of much-needed quiet in our world. 

The town went quiet too; stores and businesses closed.  Gone were the noisy cars or trucks, the mail man, UPS, and Fed-X.  Gone was the hustle and bustle—leaving only peace and quiet, and a hushed silence soaked up by the snow.  I went quiet too, knowing I wasn’t expected to be anywhere, had no appointments to keep, and was free to just rest, relax, and “do nothing real slow.”  

It’s an oxymoron, really, that quiet, brought on by Snowmageddon, adds exclamation and fun to life.  I’m reminded of a poem I wrote in 2011:  

Punctuation of Life

Exclamation points are "Wow!"
Fun times make good glue.
Stop the run-on sentence now;
Put a period, too.

Semi-colon, hyphen, dash,
Parentheses and comma,
Apostrophes and question marks
Will add a punch of drama.

Brackets and quotation marks
Make merry out of life.
The colon and ellipsis too
Will help to sound the fife.

So on the treadmill of the same,
Don't forget to party.
As you step from day to day,
Please live hale and hearty!  

I think being snowed in is kind of like all those punctuation marks.  I mean, who wouldn’t say, “Wow!” as the snow piles higher and higher?  Being snowed in is like putting a period in the run-on sentence of life.  Drinking hot chocolate, doing a jigsaw puzzle, playing Yahtzee with my husband, making popcorn, capturing pictures of the beautiful white fluff and sharing them on Facebook, calling my mother and swapping snow stories, are all worthy punctuation marks for Snowmageddon.   

Who would have thought going quiet could be so much fun?  Oh yeah, baby.

Copyright © 2016 Elaine Beachy