Reflections on a beach in winter

 

Time marches on.

Another year is a gift, a second chance. We start over and begin anew.

“Still round the corner there may wait, a new road, or a secret gate,” said J.R.R. Tolkien.

I start the day at the beach, which is just as lovely as in midsummer, only much colder.

It is deserted except for a few seagulls circling overhead, turning their wings against the wind and casting shadows on the shore.

Sunlight streams into the truck cabin keeping me toasty warm as I gaze in awe at the panorama before me.

In the morning sun, the snow coruscates, as bright light reflects on ocean waves.

Dusted with snow, granite boulders by the water’s edge seem like the stuff of snowmen, huge snowballs waiting to be placed atop each other.

William Blake said, “In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.”

As I adjust to the tranquility around me, I feel the strain of the past week lessen its hold.

In Genesis, God called his creation the sea and filled it with all kinds of swimming creatures with which the water teems, and God saw how good it was.

A walk along the beach in January is very good indeed and a constant reminder of change. Every year, every day, every second – the sea is changing. Countless populations of marine life shift. No stone is left unturned. It is a world in flux.

Today the beach is a world of white, wearing its winter wardrobe of snow and ice, a blank slate lying fallow.

I walk slowly leaving behind footprints in the snow-encrusted sand.

This quiet, open space in this in-between time or interstice reminds me of a musical composition. As a lifelong musician, I think of the Grand Pause.

The concert band rises to a crescendo, and then there is a sudden silence. The musicians have come to a G.P. or Grand Pause, which is a notation over a rest indicating that they are expected to extend the silence until the conductor signals the beginning of the next note. The function of this pause is to create a period of silence at the direction of the director.

January is a grand pause, time to reflect at the Creator’s direction.

“You can’t get too much winter in the winter,” said Robert Frost, who lived deep in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

The cold, biting wind ushers me along. A world of possibilities lies ahead.

 

 

‘Till even the comforting barn grows far away’

A view of our barn from the house during Friday's storm.

Surveying the damage from yet another nor’easter, I think we were pretty lucky.

A tree near the dog kennel snapped from the burden of snow and tug of wind.

The accordion truck bed cover on the Dodge Ram collapsed from the massive weight of water, snow and ice.

Looking around the yard, there are so many broken limbs that we’ll have to wait until the snow melts to unearth them. Two logs still cling to the snow-covered roof from the last storm.

Yet overall, we view this latest onslaught by Mother Nature as just another chapter of this highly unpredictable winter.

Shoveling the brick front stairs and path to the driveway, I have plenty of time to think about the extra work and hardship the recent bouts of wild weather have caused: days without power, a dwindling wood pile, empty cupboards, traffic accidents, coastal flooding, downed trees, delays and loss of wages.

But as I see the artistry around me, the puffy white cotton clinging to tree branches, dusting evergreens and creating fields of virgin snow, I am spellbound by its beauty.

The sky is blue, the air crisp and clean. Everything sparkles wearing its fresh new coat of snow.

A few years ago I spent some time at The Frost Place, Poet Robert Frost’s 1915 farm homestead in Franconia, New Hampshire.

Tucked in the White Mountains, the house offered a spectacular view; but as I gazed from his covered porch in October, I pictured what it looked like in winter.

Off the beaten path or in the words of the poet, somewhere along “the road not taken,” this place must have been cut off from civilization in wintertime.

Many of his poems are set in this remote backdrop, including “Dust of Snow,” “Fire and Ice,” “Looking for a Sunset Bird in Winter,” “The Mountain,” “An Old Man’s Winter Night,” “Snow,” “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” “A Winter Eden” and “The Wood-Pile.”

But Frost, who was aptly named, also felt the dread of a nor’easter. He captured these feelings in “Storm Fear”:

“How drifts are piled, / Dooryard and road ungraded, / Till even the comforting barn grows far away, / And my heart owns a doubt / Whether ‘tis in us to arise with day / And save ourselves unaided.”