23 January 2013
So much to do, and so little to stop me. Just cold water, cold enough to lie inches deep and solid white. The engine whines and the tyre spins like a frantic double dip economy, gaining no purchase. No one in the street to give a push, so for the breadth of a few feet I could walk over, the powered petrol vehicle is left impotent by chilled raindrops.
Switch off. For once, no point driving harder. Then in the silence, the street looks suddenly not cold, but cool. The snowy rooftops glitter and the trees along the way lift white arms to a frosty sky like a prayer of thanksgiving.
It's time to get out.
Lift the shovel and bend to the rasping rhythm as the black tarmac appears through the clumps and bumps of white. The energy expended in the cold strangely warms. The street quiet but for the repeated scrape as my path gets clearer, and now the world-full of to-dos and demands sinks away and I stand to catch my breath. There is a still calm covering the street like a blanket of snow. It will melt away soon. The noise of the power and the pressing and the petrol will return. But just now, I'm stuck in the snow, I'm warm not freezing, and it feels like peace.
Stopped By Snow • Opuss № I