snow

The only time I was ever not scared to walk outside in the dark growing up was when it was snowing. When the snow came, and was actively falling, there was a peace that made me eager to bundle up and experience.  The rest of the year, I would either avoid walking even to get the newspaper, which was delivered in the evenings, or I would run. Sometimes I'd even put a dog on a leash to go with me, though the mailbox was only 100 feet from the house. The pressure of the unknown, and deep dark threat of the infinite blackness in the forests that surrounded my family's home at night was palpable. That almost tangible, ominous presence of the forest gave me chills, and made the hairs on the back of my neck rise.

I was, essentially, terrified of the dark. Even inside, to this day, I hate the dark. Put me in a city, or in a habitated household and I am fine. But in a home that has only myself, or when outdoors in the deep woods of my childhood home, then the dark has a presence, and makes me feel vulnerable like nothing else does.

It isn't the menace that I want to write about though. Its the peace and hush of when it snows in Amboy. How snow, reflecting the meager light of the Pacific Northwestern winters at night, would create a glow that I would want nothing more than to bask in. Once it would get dark out, I would bundle up to my ears, and take off down the road towards the lake near my parent's home. The fat snowflakes would drift down, almost like a computer screensaver, in hypnotic and mesmerizing weight and rhythm. The evergreens boughs would dip, heavy under the weight of the wet snow. The only sound, aside from the soft squish of my boots in the snow, would be the occasional whooosh as a branch released it's heavy blanket of snow.

I tried walking in the snow at night when it first snowed here in Louisville. I saw the flakes softly falling from my apartment window. I immediately dressed warmly and rushed outside. I made it about one block before realizing the magic wasn't there. Cars whooshed by, instead of snow off evergreens. Sirens. Concrete. Houses. Artificial light. None of these things exist at night, when it snows on Frasier Road, at my parent's house.

At home, the night would be illuminated, glowing softly under the whiteness. The dark woods were not a threat, but a peaceful and beautiful place of solace. Nothing clattered, snapped, chirped, or most importantly - loomed. There would be no threat, my instincts were never challenged, my heart would never race. Silently, independently, freely I would, dare I say, commune with the forest in these moments as I walked for hours at times, through the hushed woods, across monumental fields, and oh so majestically, on the shores of the immense, black lake. I would stand for what felt like eons, staring at how the snowflakes touched and disappeared on the surface of that grand expanse of frigid water. The trees ringing the lake, covered in snow, branches reaching down to kiss the water, only emphasized it's blackness.

I would stare at that lake, so entranced, that I wouldn't have been surprised to see a phantasm jetting across its electrically charged surface, out of its infinitely timeless depths. A goddess could have risen from it, faeries and ghosts could have been drawn to it to commune, during those magical moments, and I would not have been surprised.

Once, I was across a giant field from the lake, and a large earthen berm/dike was between me and the lake. I was moving parallel to the dike, when out of the corner of my eye, through the swirling eddies of snow, I thought I saw something move on the dike. I fixed my eyes on it, and decided it was a large bird, flapping its wings, beckoning me. Was it wounded? Was it looking for me? I immediately cut across the field, a walk of about 15 minutes in the shin-deep snow. I bypassed all trails and roads, to trudge directly to the dike. I climbed the steep berm, which rose about 50 feet up, and once I hit the top, there was nothing. Just the lake.

I think perhaps I just missed catching the show, that only moments before I made it to the top, the dance had been happening on the surface of the water, and on the shores surrounding it.

One of these days I'll make it in time. Until then, I can't be afraid to keep watching out for it at night when it snows in Amboy.