First snow

It had been raining all morning. Suddenly the light from the window changed and the lick of tires on the street sounded grainier. I looked up from my book to see the roof of a house across the street coated in white.

At last this long, tired year has pulled the coverlet, turned over, preparing for sleep. With a startle of white, it plunges into dreams. The world transmutes, blinds, softens, sinks like a dull drunkard in the gutter. The book of old secrets closes at last. Air changes. Sound muffles, a throng of mittened hands clasped over ears.

I'll set aside my faded yellow hiking boots and pull out the tall black ones with weary old lining that barely keeps my feet dry. It's a time of beginnings when even beginnings are tired. I don't want to go this way, but unwillingness submits to pessimism; closes the ice gates of opportunity.

There's too much beauty to shut it out. Too much comfort in a warm mug of coffee on a winter morning with a warm cub at my shoulder. Too much pleasure in an excuse to roll over on Saturday and make love for another hour. What am I complaining about?

I'm complaining about darkness and cold. Winter light lies on the ground with darkness in the sky. It's the universe card inverted, when roots go to sleep and hair falls out. It's a premonition of death, and symbol of dreams. Magic takes over when we shut our eyes and bury ourselves in the earth. There will be music in the wind: voices of sparrows clamouring. Now life leaves messages on the ground, stories about scavenging in the bare, cold core.

This snow is late. Less than a month, then the earth will turn and our vantage on the sun will change. We'll spin our headlong journey to the heart of light again. I shouldn't be so greedy: everyone needs light, everywhere. But it seems a waste when you look at the southern hemisphere and realize how much is ocean. All that light falling on squids and plankton.

Scientists have started a billion dollar research project to chart them all, expecting to find two million new species by the end of the decade. Lucky little species, teeming through a warm ocean where I would like to be, maybe rolling on soft sand somewhere, spreading seed along the beach. I want hot seas of love, but must settle for doing it in a northern bed. It would be heartless to deprive all those fishes and stinging nudibranchs. I'll have my day in the sun.

Time to deck the house with lights, pinpoints pressed against the fabric of night. I'll squeeze through the needle eye into a dream where light is forever and we never face darkness again.

Canadian Armed Forces Tattoo

In wordoftheday:

tattoo \ta-TOO\, noun:
1. A rapid, rhythmic drumming or rapping.
2. A beat of a drum, or sound of a trumpet or bugle, giving notice to soldiers to go to their quarters at night.
3. A display of military exercises given as evening entertainment.

See the post for a fuller explanation of the origin of this word.

My comment, cross-posted:

One of the first public performances my parents ever took me to see was the Canadian Armed Forces Tattoo. I mostly remember the pipe band and drums, probably belonging to the Essex Scottish Regiment, in which my grandfather was an officer. Considering the third definition, I recall there were also acrobatic manoeuvres and other demonstrations of physical prowess. This meaning of the word crossed my mind recently, probably with reference to Remembrance Day. I believe this to be one of my earliest memories.