The Sound of Silence

I was getting my second cup of coffee this morning when it started to snow.

Big, fluffy white flakes coming down fast and thick. (“Snow globe snow,” meteorologist Steve McCauley calls it.) It was beautiful as it coated the swing set, the bushes, and the trees. Later, I heard the sound of our neighborhood’s children playing in it. Pure joy.

The snow didn’t last long here in the Fort; it started melting before it stopped snowing. But it lasted long enough for us to take a break and reset.

This week has been unimaginable for most of us. The stress and the outrage and grief over the events of the past few days has been gut-wrenching. It’s been proven that stress isn’t only mental and that the physical components of stress are extremely debilitating. I’ve struggled with insomnia and migraines this week, as well as feeling like my insides were tied in knots.

And then it started to snow.

The serenity of this morning went a long way to calming me. Snow has a sound that is almost silence but not quite. It whispers down. The Japanese call this sound “shin shin.” “Shin” means silence; the sound of snow falling is the sound of silence.

After this week, after the horror and the yelling and the 24-hour news coverage, my soul needed silence. A break. A chance to breathe. There is a list of chores that needed doing on my desk, but I decided that today, I was simply going to sit on my couch and watch the snow. So I did. I can do chores tomorrow.

Oreo enjoying the snow
photo credit: MC DuBose

I hope today was a reset for you. I hope the silence of the snow and the joyful shrieks of your children as they tried to make snowmen and the warmth of your house was, in some way, healing. We all need a little silence in our lives.