The world plays tricks on us. Nature can be brutal and unforgiving. It simply is; if you are on the wrong side of it being what it is, so much the worse for you. But look closely: there are moments of pure fairness, perhaps of generosity, that peek through.
Consider the late afternoon on a viciously cold winter day. A biting wind winds its way through the air, its icy tendrils working its way in the gaps of your scarf, slapping at the inch of exposed skin between sleeves and gloves, sweeping across your nose. The air is pure and frozen. Snow deadens the world; it muffles sound that paradoxically travels farther and clearer.
As you walk through the landscape, the snow shuffling and crunching beneath your boots, the world around you lays dormant. A few evergreens continue to defy the slumber surrounding them, while the birds have moved elsewhere, plants are brown, the palette of the world has been deadened and dulled.
Yet some early evenings hold a surprise: the sun begins its plummet to the horizon to begin another moonlit night that stays brighter than one imagines, as the cold reflected light meets a glinting snow cover that palely illuminates the world. Thinking about this black-and-white night, anticipating the warmth of a fire and the cozy companionship of others, you see vivid pinks and purples and reds blazing in the distance. Truffula tree and cotton candy clouds, backlit from a now invisible source, lazily move along in the cold wind; their luminance is entirely ignorant of the world below.
Standing outside in a biting world somehow intensifies the hues. They shine vivid and hopeful through spidery limbs of leafless trees. They attract shivering eyes and halt chattering teeth, and steamy breaths release quiet Wow‘s that reverberate through the chilly air. It is a simple joy of the world that accelerates the spirit through the forthcoming night.
