“The snow doesn’t give a soft white damn whom it touches.” — E.E. Cummings
Have a look around this winter day. How do you feel about snow? Remember, in answering, what we mean to the snow.
One’s relationship with snow often comes down to what one is prioritizing that particular day. When we focus only on the bleak reality of our day, snow tends to be nothing but a barrier. We want to get from here to there, but for the snow. We want to park there, but for the snow. Et cetera.
Alternatively, we may find all the truth in the universe buried like treasure in snow. When we seek council with it, we hear whispers in its silence. When we get out in the world with it gliding or tromping or rolling in it, we find delight revealed in ordinary. When we grab a handful and sculpt it into something alive in our imagination, we are transformed together into artist and form. Temporary and beautiful in this dance with infinity, before one day being transformed again into something else.
Do you see? Like life itself, snow is neutral and indifferent. It’s people who transform it with meaning. So again I ask, how do you feel about snow?
i thank You God for most this amazing day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing breathing any—lifted from the no of all nothing—human merely being doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
— E. E. Cummings, i thank You God for this amazing
We dwell so often on our limitations; Limited time, limited capacity for learning new things or for being patient with the things in our life that overstay their welcome. We are bound by commitments, with reasons, with a lack of imagination for breaking free from all of that and living an expansive life. We are locked into routine and measure our days incrementally. How are we to grow when we are forever held captive by a lack of audacecréatrice(creative audacity)?
To be unbounded and unlimited is of course a fantasy. We all will die one day (memento mori). Infinite growth is not for mere mortals. And yet we may live a far more expansive life than we mortals usually attempt. We are no more and no less than what we do with our time.
Why worry about all that today when we can simply do what must be done and defer hopes and dreams indefinitely? Because now is all we have. Growing into our possibility begins now. It always has and always will be so. But thinking in terms like “always” is its own trap. Because it lets us off the hook of immediacy. We must steer clear of such traps and simply think of now. For this is the birth day of life and of love and wings. So do begin.
Beauty is twice beautiful and goodness is doubly good when it concerns two wools socks in winter. — Pablo Neruda, Ode To A Pair Of Socks
There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who complain about the weather and those who dress for the weather we’ve been blessed to experience this day. The former tend to shelter in place. The latter tend to step out into it. I don’t judge either camp, but I’m clearly in the latter.
While snowshoeing Saturday morning, I came to a split in the trail. I went to the left that morning, breaking trail and returning with the thrill of having been out in it, doing the work of being fully-alive on a bright clear morning. But all that evening I thought about the path not taken. It remained unbroken and unexplored, and with that, I felt incomplete. Those paths not taken have a way of haunting us, don’t they?
The only thing to do was to go out again Sunday morning to see what was left for me. I silently hoped it would be unbroken still, that I might finish what I started. I saw footprints in the snowshoe tracks I’d laid and thought to myself that the opportunity was lost. But the footprints crossed the bridge and then turned back, indicating someone inclined towards common sense. Why continue on trails without the proper gear?
The thing is, I had the proper gear. And so I kept on walking to that fork in the path and turned right onto a gloriously unbroken trail, blazing a path for any who might follow. There is sheer delight to be found in the cold stillness of a pristine snowy forest, so long as you’re prepared to be out in it and have the tools to make your way back out again no matter what.
Having completed that walk, I doubled down with another, bringing the pup to the beach for a second winter walk. That proved far colder with wind chill cutting through our gear. Cold is one thing, cold wind is something else entirely. Even proper winter gear will let you know when it just isn’t enough. We simply have to listen to what nature is telling us.
The pup loves the beach and could have stayed all day but for the wind. Even clad in a winter coat of her own, she knew when we were having too much of a good thing. Sometimes the best thing to do is to step out into it. And sometimes it’s best to simply turn back with stories to tell. Two stories in fact. Twice beautiful, simply for having ventured out to meet them.
Two paths diverged. Hampstead Conservation Land.Snow on dunes. Hampton Beach State Park.
Four Seasons fill the measure of the year; There are four seasons in the mind of man: He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear Takes in all beauty with an easy span: He has his Summer, when luxuriously Spring’s honied cud of youthful thought he loves To ruminate, and by such dreaming high Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings He furleth close; contented so to look On mists in idleness—to let fair things Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook. He has his Winter too of pale misfeature, Or else he would forego his mortal nature. — John Keats, The Human Seasons
I’ll admit that I don’t often revisit Keats poems, but when I do, it’s usually in the cold, dark winter months. This morning the dog food stored in the garage was frozen (frozen!), so I had to bring it in to thaw so the pup could have a bit of wet food mixed in with her dry. These are first world problems I admit, but on the last day of January 2026, let it be known that I fasted in sympathy with the dog until her food thawed out.
Today is just another day forgoing mortal nature, but there are only so many days. We ought to live like we were dying, as that twangy formulaic song goes. To kick mortality down the curb with a better fitness routine and better choices about what we eat. To read and learn and sharpen the senses while sharpening is still possible. To go and do while going and doing are still in the cards for people in our particular season. Our routine determines the season we find ourselves in as much as the accumulation of years does. We mustn’t get old before our time.
Consider that Keats poem again. The man was frisky! Delighting in lusty Spring and satiated Summer, acknowledging that in Autumn he was more inclined to let the fair things pass without some inappropriate gesture from the aging poet. It’s only in Winter that he calms down, recognizing that growing old and brittle is a trade-off for death’s final embrace. For all our human nature, it’s eternity that we will sleep with forevermore. We just don’t have to be in a hurry to get there.
“Joy is not made to be a crumb.” — Mary Oliver, Don’t Hesitate
It hasn’t been lost on me that I’ve largely ignored the joy in the abundance of snow we’re having this winter while focusing on the chores that come with that abundance of snow. There ought to be more snowshoeing. There ought to be more walks in frozen woods. There ought to be more snowy play dates with the pup, who’s got enough joy to fill a barn. We can learn a lot from joyful souls, whether they’re human or otherwise.
Winter is far from over in this frigid land, and at the risk of making plans, I will find my way back to play. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All play and no work makes Jack a poor boy. But money in and of itself is the pursuit of fools and empty suits. Get out and live before the buffet closes for that long night. Before all that’s left are crumbs and thoughts of what might have been.
“Your mind now, moldering like wedding-cake, heavy with useless experience, rich with suspicion, rumour, fantasy, crumbling to pieces under the knife-edge of mere fact. In the prime of your life.” — Adrienne Rich
What a glorious quote. A poet struggling under the weight of identity, breaking away from the storybook life expected of her, stepping into a new narrative. We are transformed by thought and action, or we will remain forever imprisoned by expectations.
No matter how much we replay it, our past is dead and gone. Our present is tenuous but malleable. Now is always the prime of our lives! To break free of now and create a bold new future is audacious. May we find that within ourselves and steer towards a course that makes our heart race with anticipation.
It’s easy to feel frozen in place in the dead of winter. Every day is cold and dark. These last few days I’ve had flights and the plans related to them cancelled. Meetings fall away one-by-one, and empty spaces take their place on my calendar. These are merely facts of time and place and winter weather. The easy thing to do is nothing. The glorious thing to do is to seize the opportunity. Each day offers the freedom to crawl into old, familiar habits or leap into a new identity. Be bold today.
“Third things are essential to marriages, objects or practices or habits or arts or institutions or games or human beings that provide a site of joint rapture or contentment. Each member of a couple is separate; the two come together in double attention. Lovemaking is not a third thing but two-in-one. John Keats can be a third thing, or the Boston Symphony Orchestra, or Dutch interiors, or Monopoly.” — John Hall, The Third Thing
We have our self, we have our selves, and we have what we are mutually focused on in our time together. Like being on teams, whether sports or companies or projects worked on with mutual focus and effort, that thing we focus on together becomes a link that bonds us in the moment and forever after. A long-term relationship is simply coexisting with someone else with mutual attention on a series of third things we carry with us for the rest of our days.
Our hiking friends have the mountains and expanding red lines on trail maps as their third thing. Our sailing friends scheme of bigger boats and tropical anchorages. Our lake friends are quietly carving out a life as snowbirds and the idea of growing old in a forever summer lifestyle. My sister and brother-in-law have found pickleball a useful third thing bringing them fitness and an expansive social life. We’re all different, and so too are the things we give our lives to in mutual focus.
Third things capture a time in our life that we’ll remember one day when the math is no longer one plus one plus one more thing. We may be aware of such things as subtraction without dwelling on it. We all know the score. For it’s a thing too. Sha-la, la-la-la-la, live for today…
What do we—together—focus on other than ourselves? The list comes easily at times. The frisbee-loving pup. The house and whatever the latest project is that my bride has deemed essential to our well-being. Always, the children, then aspiring student-athletes, now adults. Increasingly, the parents, and all that aging parents mean for them… and for us. Travel and collecting experiences once deferred for other third things. Third things are our common ground, focused on together yet differently. A part of us, yet not us.
And the days are not full enough And the nights are not full enough And life slips by like a field mouse Not shaking the grass. — Ezra Pound
There is a compulsion to fill my days and nights with experience. Perhaps you share this too. There is an equally pressing sense that time is slipping past us at shocking speed. Tempus fugit. We humans are bound to notice it eventually.
Forever chasing experience. Forever working to be here, now. It’s a blessing and a curse to be aware. Mostly a blessing, for awareness offers a glimpse of all that flies past. Awareness locks a few moments in amber, that we may cherish them for the rest of our vibrant days. Awareness makes us do things like getting out of a warm bed at 3 AM to attempt a glimpse at the northern lights, or to plunge into a cold mountain stream or the bay late in the season—simply because we may never pass this way again.
Don’t waste a moment. We ought to spend the time as we know we should. We ought to avoid distraction and waste whenever possible. And be bold and daring when we least expect it of ourselves. Shake the grass and dance all night. For today will fly by like all the rest.
How long did all those possibilities sleep during the years before this emerging — Michael Ondaatje, The Then
There are hints of our future together all around us. We may see some version of ourselves emerge from the habits that we develop, or those that hold on to us (try as we might to break from them). We are what we repeatedly do, and so it is that we become what we surround ourselves with. There will always be a gap between who we are and what we want to be. Is that gap closing or becoming a chasm?
We see in the world possibilities emerging that we never imagined. We may share mutual disgust and dismay. But I’m here to tell you that there are other possibilities hiding right in plain sight, possibilities that we can control, should we become aware of them. Life is what we make of it—it has always been this way and always will be. Fight the good fight, but for the love of God start within.
What we tend to see is that which demands our attention, be it a heart attack or an autocrat or the waiter asking us what we want to drink. Immediacy demands focus. Do we remember the Eisenhower Matrix? Right next to that “urgent and important” quadrant lies the “not urgent but important” quadrant where the real work of becoming resides. Our future lies in seeing what might be, not forever reacting to what is thrown on our shoulders to somehow carry.
Everything begins with awareness. When we are self-absorbed we don’t see the soulmate standing right in front of us. When we are distracted by the despair machine, we don’t see the pendulum swinging towards decency. When we are wrapped in the comfort of easy, we don’t see the path to personal excellence available when we become inclined towards harder. Possibilities are all around us, simply waiting for opportunities to emerge. Feed them the attention they need.
It isn’t very far as highways lie. I might be back by nightfall, having seen The rough pines, and the stones, and the clear water. Friends argue that I might be wiser for it. They do not hear that far-off Yankee whisper: How dull we grow from hurrying here and there!
Many have gone, and think me half a fool. To miss a day away in the cool country. Maybe. But in a book I read and cherish, Going to Walden is not so easy a thing As a green visit. It is the slow and difficult Trick of living, and finding it where you are. — Mary Oliver, Going to Walden
It isn’t very far at all for me to visit Walden. I could be there in about an hour, accounting for rush hour traffic in that general direction. I’ve gone there before, just to be there on some random Tuesday or Wednesday or whatnot. While others worked I would play hooky for an hour or two, just to see the water, just to feel like Thoreau in the interlude between responsibilities. Inevitably I’d return better for having been there. Some might argue that my nose to the grindstone for those couple of hours would have been a better use of the time. Let them think what they want. We’re all different people, aren’t we?
I can feel that it’s almost time to re-read Walden again, just as I felt today it was time to revisit Mary Oliver. There are other voices beyond the hustle culture that ought to be listened to. There are other ways to spend our precious time. The trick to living is awareness and presence in the invaluable now. To learn and grow and become at a pace that we can maintain for the long haul, even as we know that the time slips away so very quickly.
You won’t find me at Walden today. I assure you it will be just fine without me. For a Monday I ought to be in more of a rush somewhere, but what is on the other side of that hustle? Just what do we arrive at when we go from here to there anyway? Maybe that’s why I keep writing—to remind myself to be aware of the time going by, or to simply remind myself to cherish the view along the way. To be here, now feels like more than enough. Why would we ever rush away from it?
