Snow

This morning, in addition to the snow on the balcony, there was also a black blackbird, huddled in a flowerpot. He didn’t sing; he just watched the snow-covered park. It’s a beautiful winter, white and calm. It brings peace to warm homes and children’s souls who enjoy winter games. And it brings back to me the feeling from my childhood, when I joyfully watched, through a foggy window, snowflakes fall and make a beautiful blanket of snow. There was always that dose of children’s impatience to get out as soon as possible, to jump into the snow and play with their peers. Nothing stirred a child’s imagination as powerfully as the whiteness of the snow, its crystal clarity, and the feeling of softness it provided. Snow gives an incredible feeling of silence. Nothing so powerful calms the bustle of the city, its various, sometimes unpleasant sounds to the ear, as do the snowflakes that appear from above, from the leadenly dark, dense, and opaque sky, which flutter and, with some of their inner lightness, slow down the rhythm of life of the city or the places over which they appear. As the day progresses and the snow cover thickens, the silence deepens, becoming more impenetrable. Everything becomes calm and slowed down in the silence that reigns, so distant things seem close, and yet those close become quiet and distant. Or it could be that the snow and the peace it brings with it down to earth, somehow connects the farthest points covered with snow, so all that distance is transferred somewhere around us, and then it seems to us that we are somewhere in the Siberian plain, and we are somewhere under the slopes of Trebević. And it can also be in the north, in Stockholm. It is as if all borders are lost in the whiteness with which the snow adorns the earth.

If there is a paradise, then it seems to me that it would not be possible in paradise without snow, and all for the sake of those children’s games, laughter, joy, squeals, and screams. Rosy cheeks, frostbitten hands, glazed eyes, crooked hats with traces of frozen snow around the edges. And some unsung songs that exude from the little hearts that still feel this world as their home and look forward to each new morning when they will invent new ways to brighten up their games in the snow.

A cold winter, without snow, is unhappy. It evokes a sense of sadness with gray, leafless trees, gloomy skies, and parks with frozen grass. The only joy for the eyes is the occasional stray titmouse, with its yellow-blue shades of feathers, which lands on a branch in search of food. And she, too, waits just a few moments on her partner’s branch, and then they flee and disappear together.

But then it is as if someone answers the prayers of a child, and from that grayness and severe winter, snowflakes shyly appear in the air. They change their minds about whether they are welcome; they fly by, the wind swirls them, so they somehow stick to the ground precariously. This outwitting of the wind and snowflakes sometimes lasts for several hours; you don’t know who will outwit whom. And then, when we take our eyes off the window, forget about the snow and turn our thoughts to something else, the snow begins to fall, and by evening it has already risen, giving a signal to those souls who long for its whiteness and softness, that it is here, and that it will be waiting for them in the morning, ready for new games.