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All Winter in a Day
Carmelitta Tiffany
By CARMELITTA TIFFANY
mcp blogger
There was snow on the ground, enough to shovel, last Saturday. I got out my new snowshoes, and, after watching my son and future daughter-in-law jump on their snowmobiles and speed off, I began to tramp through the snow to the pond in the back of my property.
Charlie, my Maltese-Shitsu mix puppy, came along, bundled up in his winter coat that he’d gotten for Christmas.
The weather was perfect, the snow not too deep, and we enjoyed our chance to get out in it. As we crested the hill behind the house, I looked out at the landscape and saw others out on snowmobiles and heard chainsaws running, and even heard the laughter of children way off in the distance.
We (Charlie and I) skirted around the grove of large pines and down into the depression to the pond. I stood still, while he investigated different things- a dead stand of marsh grass and cattails, a couple mounds of deer scat, and a fluffy pile of snow that had drifted. Fortunately he rolled in the snow and not the scat and was saved from my chastising- he was having fun.
The quiet down by the pond was so invigorating, but also gave me pause to just think about life and things that come to mind when you’re not really concentrating on anything.
It was bliss, just letting the fresh cold air cleanse my mind of all the things you think of, worry about, regret and remember when the world is rushing around you like a hurricane. This was the calm- the eye of the storm, so to speak, and it was so nice.
Then, the story All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury came to mind. I had read it in junior high school, and had related so much with the protagonist Margo, who was ostracized by her classmates because she knew of the sunshine, being from Earth, and had moved to Venus, where it rained continuously for seven years until, one day, the rain stopped and the sun came out for two hours. The classmates had never experienced the sunshine, not that they’d remembered, and so Margo was envied, disliked, and alienated (excuse the pun).
I related then to the story, because I, too, had often moved from one place to another and always felt terribly left out at school. Perhaps that’s why I remember the story so well.
Anyway- when the sun came out, the children burst outside and were delirious with excitement and joy. But not poor Margo. You see, the mean classmates locked her in a closet and she missed the fun.
It seemed to me that we are experiencing the same thing this weekend- the snow is so inviting, so pure and clean, and those of us who live here because we enjoy ALL the seasons are like those children from Venus, rushing out to get our dose of winter before it goes away.
Charlie
Of course, there are those who dislike the snow and cold, who live here for other reasons, and manage to suffer through the winter. Somehow, for the most part, we all manage to get along, and that’s another special thing about living here.
So, there you go- another week of Life in Riverton.
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