Home for the Holidays

FIRST SNOW
by Mary Oliver

The snow
began here
this morning and all day
continued, its white
rhetoric everywhere
calling us back to why, how,
whence such beauty and what
the meaning; such
an oracular fever! flowing
past windows, an energy it seemed
would never ebb, never settle
less than lovely! and only now,
deep into night,
it has finally ended.
The silence
is immense,
and the heavens still hold
a million candles; nowhere
the familiar things:
stars, the moon,
the darkness we expect
and nightly turn from. Trees
glitter like castles
of ribbons, the broad fields
smolder with light, a passing
creekbed lies
heaped with shining hills;
and though the questions
that have assailed us all day
remain-not a single
answer has been found-
walking out now
into the silence and the light
under the trees,
and through the fields,
feels like one.

My plane blew in under a cloud cover with snowflakes tumbling out of its folds, shaking a new layer of frosty icing to the already white blanked world in Kansas.

With a hot cup of coffee, mittens, hat, winter coat and a hug that could trump them all with warmth, my vacation started in the hands of a friend with such history, such all-knowing heart connections that even at baggage claim at the Kansas City airport, I was instantly home. 11 days later another of my soul sisters made the white-knuckle journey across rural Kansas in yet another blizzard to put me back on my way to my tropical home.

The in-between was a chaotic swirl of my very favorite of faces, brightly-lit trees, glowing candle light, loud and lively charades, laughter rising up over conversation, well-bundled walks over snow-blown roads, heaps of food, sledding the mini-manmade-mountains of scooped road and driveway, conversations into the dark of night, snow angel crafting, hot coffee that merged into hot tea and then into hot totties, games of go-fish and old maid, hugs, a light-splashed home winking at me from the road a mile away, movies, careening toboggans behind the Papa-Steve-driven-four-wheeler letting loose the little kid inside us screaming with joy, cookie-decorating, kitty patting and dog wrestling, all to the background of an endless white horizon.

I treasured stepping into the homes of people I've sorely missed, catching up on the miraculous growth of my nephews and my best friends' children, toasting to how far we've come and here and now we find ourselves in. I wrung in the new year with a house packed full of family all giggling with party fever. I hugged my grandmother and pulled some quiet moments away from the crowd to enjoy some of her witty wisdom about marriage and child rearing. Incredible friends from Denver made the arduous trip across the drifted highways to cozy down in the warm oasis of the farm thus initiating themselves into my ever-growing farm family. With each visit, each hand held, each conversation had my heart filled to bursting.

On the last evening I was home, I took a walk along the road heading west. Usually the road yealds soft, velvety dirt underfoot, but this visit I instead crunched in the snowpack for a few miles with the trusty farm dogs following behind ready to defend me from rogue pheasant or roving coyote.

After a gluttonous feast of friends and family, I walked in search of the other thing I most long for during Port-au-Prince living.... peace. quiet. open spaces. empty places.

Fields for miles were blanked under several feet of snow, insulating the world. When standing still, the only sound to break the deafening silence was the winter wind whistling past my ears stuffed in my stocking cap. The air I breathed smelled of cold and ice. All the details of the landscape I have loved my life through were hidden under drift. My breath vapored around my face condensing on my eyelashes like teardrops. For most of the walk the sun stayed hidden behind a bank of flat grey clouds. But like a rare surprise, it would occasionally find a crack in the wall and send golden light sparking fields full of diamonds to emerge, glittering in surreal beauty. For miles over of miles, I was alone save for a heard of deer huddled together on a far away hill. In that kind of space, my soul expands. It breathes. It is at once inexplicably quiet and bursting with joy.

After eye-filling, ear-rattling, nose-overwhelming days in Haiti, my winter walk was like coffee beans during a perfume testing... a moment to clear the senses, a blank canvas to stare into, a clean void where all goes quiet. Even the rambling of my thoughts muted themselves in honor of the pristine, hushed world all around me. Collapsing into a snow bank under a grove of trees, staring up into the blue grey sky, the wind blocked by the shelter of pine letting pure deep silence settle around me like the flakes of snow that created this masterpiece, I let all go quiet.

Now, back in the hustle bustle of this concrete stacked, people-packed city the images of my time home seem almost dreamlike, put together of the very ingredients I need for rest and revival... people long and deeply loved, the playful passing of time together, and nature in whatever mood she feels like sharing. Among the most cherished of my Christmas gifts were new golden memories made, soulful conversations shared, and an incredible peace settled deep within. What a way to start a new year.

Thanks to all who created a wonder-world of homecoming. You've done my heart good.