Its done and gone now. The two big storms, which hit DC in a one-two wallop, have moved out to sea. I watched last night as those lovely, ever cheerful and somewhat silly forecasters on the Weather Channel said “bye-bye” to it like the infamous SNL flight attendant. They had even named it the February Fury. Bye bye February fury.
We are left now with mountains of snow. It took seven days for the plows to arrive in our little neighborhood, just as it did in most of the residential areas of metro DC. The first storm dumped 25 inches, and the second about 15. Once the trucks did come, they completely obliterated most of our sidewalk shoveling jobs, making huge peaks that are ten and fifteen feet high in some spots. It will take weeks and weeks for the snow in our yards to melt, as well.
I thought we would go crazy, being snowed in for so long. We were truly stuck in our houses for many days on end, able only to travel to our most immediate neighbors’ homes to say hi or hang out and eat junk food.
I thought we would go crazy the first time, and when the power went out I thought: this is not fun any more. When I could see my husband’s breath in the kitchen, I thought, this can’t last much longer.
It didn’t.
But I didn’t go crazy, either.
There was a lot of beauty in the storms.
For one thing, it was quiet. I mean really, truly quiet. The kind of quiet that you’ don’t often get to live inside of when you live inside of a city. The kind of quiet that enables you to hear the flakes touch down. The kind of quiet that offers you a chance to hear things before you see them, and lets your heart stop racing and your muscles relax. The kind of quiet that lets you think full, long thoughts, and drink them into your brain without interruption when you walk outside. The kind of quiet that nourishes you like good food.
When the roads were completely blocked and the plows couldn’t get anywhere near our house or even the surrounding main artery streets, there was a stillness that felt made it feel like we were swimming in a pool of white.
First of all, there was no tv. Phones kind of stopped, too. For a while we actually lost phone service on our land lines. But even when the service returned and the power went on, no one really called. They didn’t need to. What would they say? Yes, yes, we’re stuck too. After the first time you get that message, you just stop calling people. You go into wait mode. You don’t need to talk.
The helicopters stopped completely. I realized only then how much white noise they create in my daily life. The ever-present hum of traffic cams, hospital rescue flights, and even Camp David dignitary visits all add up to a lot of chopper noise, and they are loud. If M*A*S*H*’s Radar O’Reilly lived here, he’d go insane. You can even hear them inside, when you are tucked in behind double paned windows. (Once day a month ago I counted four, FOUR , helicopters within sight at one time while I was out in the backyard. I thought of the movie Grand Canyon.)
But once the heaviest snow kicked in, that all stopped completely. I felt as if I had been cured of a bad case of tinnitus.
The sirens, which are constant along the beltway and the big main roads nearby also stopped for about one day. (Sadly, these were the first to return once the snow stopped falling. Without back ground noise to cover their impact, each ambulance that wound its way around to the hospital could be heard clearly. Each one gave us a shudder. Thank God, we said to ourselves, none of us has to try to get out this mess in an ambulance. How could they get through the drifts? I fretted over friends with newborns and my elderly friends and neighbors; what if they needed medical care? )
The Capitol Beltway itself, which roars like a low, loud river in the distance where ever you go in this area, also stopped for about two days. No one drove anywhere, everything stopped, and no one went to work.
Even the train whistles on the Amtrak lines in Kensington – a sound which I really actually like – stopped.
The birds also went quiet, which I actually found eerie. On quick jaunts out with my snow-loving dog, I looked up at the trees and issued silent prayers, wondering where they and hoping that they had found good roosting spots while the flakes fell.
Those same birds have now returned in many mixed flocks. A huge murder of crows came to the park this morning with noisy abundance. Starlings, also, are back and in the trees. You can hear the chickadees, which I know are looking for nests this time of year, and about six or ten blue jays are also out and about, hunting in the ever greens for food and sounding like noisy, off-key flutists.
The mockingbirds greeted me noisily from the roof when I made my around in thirty six inches of snow to free up the red Ilex winterberries which had become buried in drifts. I had been watching from the kitchen as they had tried, unsuccessfully, to peck through the snow to get to that important food. I took pity and made the difficult trek to the remote spot in the garden. Within moments they descended and began to feast.
The beltway, the helicopters, the jet flights, the sirens, and all of the beep beep beeping of heavy equipment being used to clear snow can now be heard now when you step outside. You can hear the wheels of a big truck, as they spin out in frustration. I suspect our UPS truck driver is once again stuck down the street in his brown box truck.
The snow is turning grey, in those huge mountains. Smog, road gravel, salt… these are all accumulating in the packed up drifts on street corners. The melted stuff runs in slushy rivers towards the creek, and freezes up each night, making roads into skating rinks. The clean, crispness has worn off.
I wish I could keep it white and quiet for a while longer. I’m very glad to be plowed out, glad to be getting back to normal life, and glad that my day no longer resembles that of Ma in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s The Long Winter.
But I look over my photos of those first few hours after the snow stopped -- taken when the sun first came out and the sky was crystalline blue -- and mostly I remember the quiet silence, the peaceful cocoon of white which seemed clean and bright and free.
I wish I could capture that to keep in pictures, too.
We are left now with mountains of snow. It took seven days for the plows to arrive in our little neighborhood, just as it did in most of the residential areas of metro DC. The first storm dumped 25 inches, and the second about 15. Once the trucks did come, they completely obliterated most of our sidewalk shoveling jobs, making huge peaks that are ten and fifteen feet high in some spots. It will take weeks and weeks for the snow in our yards to melt, as well.
I thought we would go crazy, being snowed in for so long. We were truly stuck in our houses for many days on end, able only to travel to our most immediate neighbors’ homes to say hi or hang out and eat junk food.
I thought we would go crazy the first time, and when the power went out I thought: this is not fun any more. When I could see my husband’s breath in the kitchen, I thought, this can’t last much longer.
It didn’t.
But I didn’t go crazy, either.
There was a lot of beauty in the storms.
For one thing, it was quiet. I mean really, truly quiet. The kind of quiet that you’ don’t often get to live inside of when you live inside of a city. The kind of quiet that enables you to hear the flakes touch down. The kind of quiet that offers you a chance to hear things before you see them, and lets your heart stop racing and your muscles relax. The kind of quiet that lets you think full, long thoughts, and drink them into your brain without interruption when you walk outside. The kind of quiet that nourishes you like good food.
When the roads were completely blocked and the plows couldn’t get anywhere near our house or even the surrounding main artery streets, there was a stillness that felt made it feel like we were swimming in a pool of white.
First of all, there was no tv. Phones kind of stopped, too. For a while we actually lost phone service on our land lines. But even when the service returned and the power went on, no one really called. They didn’t need to. What would they say? Yes, yes, we’re stuck too. After the first time you get that message, you just stop calling people. You go into wait mode. You don’t need to talk.
The helicopters stopped completely. I realized only then how much white noise they create in my daily life. The ever-present hum of traffic cams, hospital rescue flights, and even Camp David dignitary visits all add up to a lot of chopper noise, and they are loud. If M*A*S*H*’s Radar O’Reilly lived here, he’d go insane. You can even hear them inside, when you are tucked in behind double paned windows. (Once day a month ago I counted four, FOUR , helicopters within sight at one time while I was out in the backyard. I thought of the movie Grand Canyon.)
But once the heaviest snow kicked in, that all stopped completely. I felt as if I had been cured of a bad case of tinnitus.
The sirens, which are constant along the beltway and the big main roads nearby also stopped for about one day. (Sadly, these were the first to return once the snow stopped falling. Without back ground noise to cover their impact, each ambulance that wound its way around to the hospital could be heard clearly. Each one gave us a shudder. Thank God, we said to ourselves, none of us has to try to get out this mess in an ambulance. How could they get through the drifts? I fretted over friends with newborns and my elderly friends and neighbors; what if they needed medical care? )
The Capitol Beltway itself, which roars like a low, loud river in the distance where ever you go in this area, also stopped for about two days. No one drove anywhere, everything stopped, and no one went to work.
Even the train whistles on the Amtrak lines in Kensington – a sound which I really actually like – stopped.
The birds also went quiet, which I actually found eerie. On quick jaunts out with my snow-loving dog, I looked up at the trees and issued silent prayers, wondering where they and hoping that they had found good roosting spots while the flakes fell.
Those same birds have now returned in many mixed flocks. A huge murder of crows came to the park this morning with noisy abundance. Starlings, also, are back and in the trees. You can hear the chickadees, which I know are looking for nests this time of year, and about six or ten blue jays are also out and about, hunting in the ever greens for food and sounding like noisy, off-key flutists.
The mockingbirds greeted me noisily from the roof when I made my around in thirty six inches of snow to free up the red Ilex winterberries which had become buried in drifts. I had been watching from the kitchen as they had tried, unsuccessfully, to peck through the snow to get to that important food. I took pity and made the difficult trek to the remote spot in the garden. Within moments they descended and began to feast.
The beltway, the helicopters, the jet flights, the sirens, and all of the beep beep beeping of heavy equipment being used to clear snow can now be heard now when you step outside. You can hear the wheels of a big truck, as they spin out in frustration. I suspect our UPS truck driver is once again stuck down the street in his brown box truck.
The snow is turning grey, in those huge mountains. Smog, road gravel, salt… these are all accumulating in the packed up drifts on street corners. The melted stuff runs in slushy rivers towards the creek, and freezes up each night, making roads into skating rinks. The clean, crispness has worn off.
I wish I could keep it white and quiet for a while longer. I’m very glad to be plowed out, glad to be getting back to normal life, and glad that my day no longer resembles that of Ma in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s The Long Winter.
But I look over my photos of those first few hours after the snow stopped -- taken when the sun first came out and the sky was crystalline blue -- and mostly I remember the quiet silence, the peaceful cocoon of white which seemed clean and bright and free.
I wish I could capture that to keep in pictures, too.
1 comment:
This is exactly why I moved from the big city to "Littletown".
I don't know how much my blood pressure dropped, but it definitely dropped. How many years do you suppose I added to my life?
Now, when we go visit relatives in Bigtown, I'm saddened and amazed by the constant HUM of goings-on. I can't believe I put up with it as long as I did.
In our little town it takes 10 minutes to drive from the North end to the South... less than that from East to West. I can buy most things I need from Ned or Charlene. Things I cannot get from them can be ordered online, or I can drive 90 minutes to Bigtown and get them.
The quietude that awed you is available if you want it. I've been to your neck-o-the-woods and know you don't have to go very far West to get away from the noise if that's your desire.
Do you want it?
I did.
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