Snow Silence

The first thing I noticed when I walked outside at 6:00 a.m. with snow shovel in hand this morning was the silence.

Yes, it's always quietest just before the dawn, but this morning even more so. The three inch layer of snow that coated roads, shrubs, and rooftops alike muffled even the sound of my shovel scraping across the pavement.

Just as someone might step through a doorway, I stepped into the silence and traveled back to 1986. It was eight o'clock on a February night. The snow had reached a depth of ten inches since beginning only hours earlier and was showing no sign of letting up.

The only sounds were the squeak of my rubber boots in the wet snow, wind howling in the trees, the panting breaths of my dog, and - oh, yes, an occasional rumble of thunder. I was struck by thought that I had somehow stepped outside of time; that my extended stroll through the neighborhood was taking place between one click of the second hand and the next. Everyday sounds lay on either side of that click, and I suspected that when the second hand finally jumped to that next hash mark on the clock face the blare of car horns and the spinning of tires would infiltrate the quiet.

The absolute quiet that occurs only between seconds in a new fallen snow.