2000-09-26 - 11:41 MDT

September 26, 2000

Quietly calm

Going back, many years ago and feeling the things I felt once. I remember during World War Two when I was working on second shift one night, I noticed at about my mealtime that it had started to snow. It was early in the winter, we hadn't gone into the freezer yet.

When I got off work there was about a mile to walk to the Tramway Loop, there to catch a street car home.

There is a muffling of sound about the world when there is fresh snow on the ground. It gives me a sense of unreality or of living in the land of peaceful beings. Early in our married life I think that I still had the childish awe of things in the world around me.

I boarded the streetcar and traveled through a white painted, softened atmosphere, noticing how much nicer things looked when wearing white.

Reaching home and going in quietly and looking at Heather as she slept, I had the moronic urge to share in the wonder outside at one o'clock in the morning. I very gently coaxed Heather awake and asked her to take a walk with me. On her drowsy questioning about why she should get up, get dressed and go out in the middle of the night for a walk, I could only say, "Come on lady, come with me and see."

Very sweetly and agreeably she dressed and donned outerwear and we stepped out into the marvel of a world of our very own. No tire tracks on the street, no footprints that we could see and unbelievable silence. We walked in a fairyland of lightly falling snow rejoicing in life itself, going to a park several blocks away. The converstion between us was about the magical effect of the snow.

That night I think that I brought Heather into my realm of the night. My domain of the night where I felt that I was out of bed while the big folks slept and I was free. The look of difference about the somnolent world around us seemed to bring Heather into my life a bit more.

We walked around in the park, warmly wrapped and talked of childish things that had happened when we were "little people," enjoying to the max each other's company. After bit we headed home, went indoors, shedding our coats and gloves, basking a bit while Heather made us some hot chocolate which we drank while seated at the kitchen table. Our conversation was not a lively thing, rather it was a dreamy, loving thing. Then on to bed where we slept spoon fashion, resting, in a snowy world, quietly calm.

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