What's old becomes new again

Sometimes I forget how loud snow can be. Before snow covers the ground and muffles the sound of the flakes that follow, the first snowflakes strike the fallen dry leaves on the forest floor. Those flakes are not silent, and at least when forest covers the land as far as I can see, they aren’t even particularly quiet.

This morning, my first thought when I stepped outside was that it was sleeting. But when I brushed my hand along the deck railing, soft, powdery snowflakes took to the air and danced around as lightly as confetti. Who would guess that something so light, so airy, so tiny as a snowflake could make as much noise as sleet? They do.

Perhaps it’s simply because the forest covers so much territory around the cabin that their sound is magnified that much. Perhaps it’s because the mornings here are so quiet and devoid of loud human noises that gentler sounds can predominate. Those two both contribute to how much I can hear around me, naturally, though I don’t think those are the sole causes. It’s simpler than that.

Dry, powdery snow falling on dry leaves is just noisy. It’s one of those things that I never noticed when I lived in a town surrounded by grassy yards. It’s also one of those things I tend to forget from year to year, so every new winter season brings a new revelation of remembering.
New years, new rememberings. What’s old becomes new again. The turn of the seasons is nature’s way of reminding us to remember again what we used to know and what we can know again. Nature’s gifts are ever boundlesss.

Happy New Year!