Only children take seriously the first October snow. Grownups know that early snow is a bit of a tease. Look, it’s nothing, it melts as it hits the asphalt. Today, this November snow is no tease. It seems like an iron door, swinging shut against the light of fall. Gold is out, silver is in. White crayons on black construction paper couldn’t be farther from the truth of a late afternoon winter snow. The clouds seem to be a blank, universal color, but which one? Purple? Steel gray? They are not white, but their feathers are.
So much shedding from something so still as a cloud.
I sorted my house last week, accompanied by stillness and my own thoughts. I shed many things, mainly childhood supplies we no longer need, which the self-assured young mothers in my life do not want. My heart is a nebulous gray as I shed the trappings of young motherhood, feathery memories floating in the air all around me as I fill bags and boxes. The act, like a silent winter storm, is terrible and beautiful. Objects of every color and memories of every shade, so many that it only feels blank and cold when the sorting is over and the shelves are bare. White.