There is beauty in the unusual, both because of its startling qualities and of its inherent uniqueness. Sometimes the unusual is simply the ordinary turned inside out, such that, upon first viewing, nothing seems amiss until matters are put into context.
Winter’s unusualness is similar to that of photographic negatives: colors are inverted and otherwise normal objects take on an appearance similar to that of a pair of socks worn inside out. For in deep mid-winter, the absence of color and detail becomes foreground material rather than the stuff of background, and spacial realities must be relearned.
Humptulips County has not yet arrived at winter’s depths, and we have had no snow. Our weather forecasters merely dream of the pride of place a good snowfall offers them, and, for the moment, restrict themselves to noting its absence and hinting at possibilities. Thus far, winter has been content to nightly rime our gravelled roads and the puddles along their verge with the apparent goal of crunchy mornings and melodiously dripping afternoons.
Nonetheless, we have had a few very cold nights, with the temperature dropping well below freezing. I awoke to the results of one of these earlier this week to find each needle of our many pines sheathed in ice. The crystallized needless gave the early morning that fairy tale quality mankind strives to imitate by use of outdoor Christmas lights; a quality even more precious when applied by nature.
Mornings such as this come rarely enough to qualify as unusual, but frequent enough not to garner the sort of undivided attention they deserve. For one is wont to give perfunctory appreciation to their gracefulness, seeing them more as a reminder of the season than as a moment of profound beauty. Regardless of how you see such mornings, their time is fleeting, and it is this very transience that makes them worthy of longer and deeper contemplation – for the quality of grace is never sustainable.
But the morning in question turned truly unusual as the day warmed. One particular pine lies directly opposite our living room window and it, too, was bathed in ice crystals. As Helen and I, breakfasted, showered and dressed, sat discussing our plans for the day, I came to realize that rain was falling from a pale, but otherwise sunny, cloudless sky. On closer inspection, I noted that rain was only falling under the pine in question: rain caused by the nearly simultaneous melting of each icy, needled sheath.
If there had been wind, the tree might have shaken itself free of crystals. But there was no wind, and the tree did not seem to be the actor in this piece. It was if each icy sheath was in communication with every other, and they all decided to abandon ship – or tree – in a moment of communal cognition. There seemed to be something in the sunlight activating the moment: something more intelligent than mechanical; something more intuitive than chemical.
And so we enjoyed this small, but magnificent, musical for all of the ten or fifteen minutes of its duration. It was played just for us, occurring, as it did, outside our window – far enough from the road as to be visually private, and quiet enough to be heard only by an audience of two.
Thus was our morning graced by the moment, and so it is that my memory is graced anew with recollection.
