Spirits of the Earth

The weather here is as indecisive as a fat kid in a candy shop.

Yesterday I walked a farmer's field, the muddy stubble rising in hills beneath my feet, the green grass poking its sweet head in between the furrows.  In caelo supra valles, sol lucet clarussior quam feminae ornamenta.  (In the sky above the hills, the sun shone brighter than a woman's jewels.)  The sky was bluer than the ocean on a still day and in the distance, I could see Moscow Mountain, its peak white with snow.  It was cold, but as the sun set it hung close to me, warming the world in a dusting of golden light.

This morning I sit cross-legged on our gold velvet couch; across from me stands my Charlie Brown tree: slightly bent but cheerful strung with popcorn and cranberries.  The world is white now, swirling in furies of snow falling hard, fast, crooked.  It began less than an hour ago, but the red car in the neighbor's drive is now topped with white and the road is thickly dusted.

As I walked those hills yesterday, my shadow bobbed along on the next hill over, waving back when I lifted a hand in greeting.  I could feel fairies and dryads all around me.  The world is surely magic, full of spirits and the spiritual.

Snowfields

Snow has turned the fields outside Moscow into wilderness.  It makes this place treacherously beautiful.  When I was sledding, snow streaked across the old farmer's hill we were on; everything glowed orange in the falling white.  Trees in the distance stood fuzzy, like an old photograph--and just as quiet.  It felt as if we had been displaced: like we, laughing in our wool hats and wet gloves and ears full of snow, were the only creatures alive in a land of whiteness.  

It was magic, being alive just then.