The air is still. It’s as though nature is afraid to move lest it injures itself on the sharp edge of winter’s teeth. My body is tense, my shoulders are hunched even though my winter coat and boots are keeping me warm. I feel the sharp caress of winter on my face. My face feels numb, and for a moment I wonder if my blood will congeal. I begin walking faster.
I realize as my mind is running in a loop of how cold it is, I look up, up into the sky and notice the shades of blue bleed into the dark sky. I’ve never noticed the sky like this before. I’m always scurrying from my house to the car; and when I do take a walk, I don’t notice the sky. I mean, I see that it’s either cloudy, cloudless, clear, etc, but I don’t notice the colour; the variations of blue or greys or even the white and off-white colour of the clouds against a background of cerulean or azure.
It causes me to think about all the things that I don’t notice. The shrubs on the corner house, how my neighbour has a bike leaning on the side of the house, with one back tire flat. Or how the older gentlemen never smile at you when you smile and nod, or greet them at any time of day. I don’t notice how there’s a sense of security that isn’t real. It feels like a neighbourhood, but I wonder how many of my neighbours have their doors securely locked; how no one leaves their garage door open and unattended.
You know what, I just noticed that the neighbourhood kids aren’t playing outside. In the summer I could hear them, loud, watching as they chased each other from one house to the other. And now, even the teeth of this winter have threatened to devour them should they dare make any sound of rejoicing.
But it’s beautiful. Winter may feel merciless, but it commands silence. It produces change. It forces you to shift---whether it’s driving slower, or dressing adequately. You feel the consequences of forgetting gloves, a scarf, or even proper shoes, and you don’t dare repeat the same error.
I don’t notice, but I notice. I notice the silence. How everything is quiet, so quiet.
The other day a scripture popped into my mind: Be sober, be vigilant, for your enemy the devil is roaming around seeking whom he may devour. And my pastor at prayer night last night referenced the same scripture. And I bring that up to also take a page from this weather. When the enemy is roaming, seeking whom he may devour, it’s good to get quiet. Be still. Pay attention. Because even though I cannot tell which direction, through whom, or what day or hour he will strike; but because I am still, I may hear him, notice him better than if I were distracted. It’s awfully quiet, walking down the sidewalks, but I notice my ears are pricked a little higher, on high alert. In this silence I feel like I can hear everything.
