In honor of the frigid temperatures this season, I thought I’d pay tribute to winter’s offspring.

I was driving around town the other day and riding some poor woman’s bumper, trying to get home before the weather turned bad. I didn’t make it, thanks to said woman making an incredibly impressive effort to drive eight miles below the speed limit.

But that’s okay.

Because the little flakes started falling, started dissolving on my windshield. They threaded their way through the lines of traffic, each one providing a little bit of magic before kissing the earth.

And I was at peace.

In fact, everyone was. I would’ve readily sat in several miles of traffic if I could be surrounded by the swirling whiteness that fell like goose down from a shaken pillow. Mother Nature began a quiet transformation of her surroundings. The hustle and bustle slowed, eyes were brought up from their defaulted texting positions, drivers stopped hovering over the steering wheels and settled back against their seats.

It’s rather astounding, really, what a little wintry mix can do to a hardened world. As I sat there tranquilly enjoying the silence of my now shut-off radio, I took this picture, because how could I not capture one of these rare moments?

There is something utterly refreshing about the first flakes that warm your heart in the midst of a colorless, frozen season.

But what is it?

It could be the delicate precipitation itself—the vulnerable, frosted drops that glide down to silently permeate our oblivious world, their short lifespan dissolving into wet oblivion once they reach their destination.

It could be the incongruity. These minuscule flakes make an enormous impact in the short time they are with us. Our busy world stops. People forget their cellphones and pagers and appointments for a second—just a second—to watch the birth and delivery of these tiny little soldiers.

It could be the mystery of it. These small creatures become from the joining of the elements, fall from a source so unfathomably high that we could suspect heaven to be their home. Besides, how could something so perfectly untainted, not even by color, be from anywhere else?

And how can something so little create such a bottomless silence? They hold the power to enchant even the hardest of hearts, to make the busiest of businessmen stop and calmly fall under their soft, pure spell.

Let this be a testament that there is a softness, a warmth, in freezing.

 

Love elephant and want to go steady?

Sign up for our (curated) daily and weekly newsletters!

Editorial Assistant: Terri Tremblett/Editor: Bryonie Wise

Photo: Serge Melki/Flickr