©February
2006
Carol
Jane Remsburg
The Silence of Winter
I can hear it on the wind, the coming of the cold. It's been such a warm winter but that is going to change and soon. Punxsutawney Phil didn't have to tell me we would be having six more weeks of winter, especially since we haven't had much of a winter to speak of yet. However, today the winds whisper to me. They didn't just help me speed-dry my bed linens adding the sweetness of winter spice to my sheets and blankets, don't be fooled for the wind does speak.
The bitter is coming, not today and not tomorrow, but soon, the winds promise. Just when we think we'll be beyond winter's touch it will strike and it will be cold and we won't be ready. It may or may not snow, but the frigid temperatures are shifting towards us. 'Ware says the wind.
Listening to the wind isn't something most people do, cooped up behind their four-walls with their television or music or computers playing to them. Winter is a good time to listen as the quiet can be found out of doors.
Today is Superbowl Sunday and many have parties to attend or they watch old movies or read a book, but outside is likely not on their agenda today. For me, a Sunday in winter finds me with a laundry basket in hand if it's not outright raining, along with a heartfelt prayer for a good drying breeze, it's my time to feel blessed and grateful—and to listen.
This afternoon, even out in the country, very little road noise is heard. People have already traveled to their destinations and a quiet pervades allowing of the rising and falling of the wind to take center stage. There are no flocking snow geese today, not even the grackles. The wind clouds loom dark and forbidding, as if threatening a storm of precipitation. Children and many adults can't tell the difference between the coming of rain or snow, or if it's just the wind. This morning the dark blue foretold to me a good drying day, brisk and strong with that whisper of real cold…about a week away if not less.
Yet, it's not about the cold, the sweetly fresh laundry, or even the lonely, barren, landscape. For me there is a feeling of belonging within my little patch of dirt as the clouds drift by. It's the silence that only winter brings, not a bird singing, not a peeper peeping, not a cricket chirping, and not even a dog barking. In the absence of human and animal noises, only the wind speaks now, you can hear it build, envelope you, freshening your spirit, and then it departs only to build again.
Feel the power of the wind and let it blow away the cobwebs of the spirit and mind. Embrace the cold so that the warmth inside is as dear as it should be. So like the waves cresting before crashing upon the beach, now is the time of the winter wind. Don't hide from it, listen for it. Let it speak to you. You'll be surprised at what you hear, and what you don't.