Snow and Light

There are so many ways to enjoy snow and Rochester winters offer many of them. One of my personal favorites is to walk during a heavy snow just before or after daylight, dawn and dusk, when there is just enough light to see the distant features blurred by the snowfall. This week I experienced one of those morning walks. The house lights were on in most of the houses and the high schoolers were already unloading from their buses, but rush hour was not yet in motion and there was a quietness as the snow blanketed the roads and trees and ground as well as my coat and hood in whiteness. When I experience such things nowadays, my mind takes me back to one particular experience I had in the early 1960's, maybe 1964? I was walking home alone just as it was turning dark near where the path to the baseball field and sand hill veered off the recently extended Wilelen Road. There was a very heavy snow, so heavy that when you looked ahead all you saw was whiteness except for some lights in the houses. It was so quiet, so peaceful. It touched me for some reason in a very deep way. The snow was so heavy you could hardly make out the woods behind the houses or the field which was empty then but is now a fully developed neighborhood. It gave me a good feeling of individual existence like one might have on a mountain top. A happy memory of the beauty the winter offers and why it feels so good to be back where snowy winters are part of life.