Scientifically speaking, falling snow absorbs sounds, decreasing ambient noise over any landscape; the minute and confined air between snowflakes lessens sound vibration. That’s why it is so quiet when it snows.
And the snow eventually arrives soundlessly, dancing in the air at the mercy of wind gusts. The large flakes begin forming light at first and then heavy white blankets.
The silence
of the falling, sticky snow is eventually shattered by limbs creaking, crashing
in the woods with a loud thud, a collective sigh of nature burdened by the heavy,
pristine white blanket. The trees look like white giants with droopy arms
dragging the ground.
It is the
first snow of winter 2025 with ten inches accumulation so far, and still falling
hard. The hawkish wind is blowing it sometimes sideways, drifting in sudden
gusts a few inches that fail to remove any significant amount of snow, already
stuck like glue to the ground and on all horizontal surfaces no matter how
small.
I am dressed
like storybook Nanook of the North, in heavy wool sweater, thankful for the
cozy heat from the twenty-first century’s furnace.
I am no
longer freezing in flannel pajamas, wool pants, sweater, coat, gloves, and
boots inside as I did during the communist regime when steamed heat, hot water,
and electric or gas heaters were things only the loyal party members enjoyed on
a constant basis in wintertime. That was my white privilege.
The
windchill is at 10 degrees Fahrenheit and I am praying that electricity will
stay on, as our Marxist politicians in Washington, D.C. have been pushing their
green globalist agenda with reliance on erratic “green” energy from wind and
solar. Right now, the wind is blowing but there is no sun. Fossil fuels and
wood are what people can rely on dependably.
We are
cutting down trees at alarming rates to make shipping boxes for an economy that
has been forced from brick-and-mortar stores to home delivery due to the flu
fearmongering broadcast non-stop on mainstream media, frightening people inside
their homes for almost four years now. Hiding and cowering in fear has turned
the American population into voluntary prisoners inside their own homes.
The roads in
our neighborhood are impassable and nobody has come out yet to shovel their
driveways, nor are there any road plows in sight to clear the roads. The
schools closed yesterday, and people wondered if it was wise to do so after years
of students learning little at home except how to play new online games, but people
realize today with a sigh of relief that meteorologists were right this time. The
popular saying, even broken clocks are right once a day, fits this weather forecast.
During my
childhood, kids would have already been outside, sledding, skating,
building snowmen, having snowball fights, however painful with wet snow, and
squealing with joy and occasional pain from injury. By the end of the day, when
the streetlights came on, and they went home reluctantly, their clothes were
wet and frozen stiff on their bodies. The children of this current generation
are snug inside, staring at a blue screen all day, getting their exercise
surfing the television channels or their electronic devices, still dressed in
their pajamas. They are weak and pampered and would be unable to survive the
elements outside for any length of time.
The snow
keeps falling in large flakes, the wind has died down, the birds are hiding, and
the silence is peaceful.
