Here's pictures of the gorgeous tree outside our house. The one on the left is how it looked when my family was here a couple of weeks ago, and the other is what's left of it now after two weekends of unnervingly strong winds.
On the one hand, it's kinda depressing looking at it like this, but on the other, there's also an incredible sense of promise, like yeah, it'll be this way for the next few months, but think of all the extraordinary things that are happening inside the tree as it gets ready to leaf again in March (see what happens when you've been here long enough? You end up with an entire repetoire of positive thinking mechanisms to make the best of the long winters, like talking yourself into believing that cold winds are "cathartic" and "invigorating" instead of just admitting that they're plain... well, *cold*.)
Besides, I was crossing the street today when a single pristine snowflake landed on my glove and I had a sudden vision of Ann Arbor blanketed in immaculate white snow. I'll regret saying this in two months, but it was a nice mental picture. I actually like snow, it's the cold I have problems dealing with. It might help if I read and re-read this Stevens poem often enough, disengage myself from the bitter cold, and chant over and over again, "Serene, winter is all a state of mind..."
The Snow Man
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
- Wallace Stevens
2 comments:
Since I feel slightly responsible for winter - even though I was only asking about the weather - I want to bring your attention to a movie I used to watch as a kid. The Snowman.
"In Raymond Briggs's charming tale, told with 175 softly hued, artfully composed frames, a little boy makes friends with a snowman." It's much more artistically done than, say, A Pokemon Christmas - (if it existed.)
If it makes you feel better - it's cold here too.
i forgive you... :)
and i love The Snowman, but the book version. in my past life when i actually had a real income, i collected children's literature (which often isn't just for kids by the way) The Snowman is one of favorites.
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