Come to my quietness I shall cover you with it,
like a white sheet that has blown all day in the sun,
like a mountain lake filled with spring,
it shall slip over you…
Notes:
Notes:
There is Something about being out and about and walking @ Daybreak as light snow falls.
And in a city of ~130,000, not a single set of tracks on any of the footpaths.
Just fresh fallen snow, silence, and me.
DK @ Daybreak. 6:32 am, January 24, 2022. 25° F, feels like 15° F. Light Snow. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. More shots from this morning’s walk here.
DK @ Daybreak. 6:32 to 6:46 am, January 8, 2022. 19° F (-7 C), feels like 7° F (-14 C). Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT.
Snow had started falling from the Illinois sky, white crystallizations of water as pure as he felt… His thoughts had slowed to a happy medium, no slower than that, not yet. He stood for a moment on the sidewalk, amid the melting snowflakes, and wished the world could just stand still.
— Jonathan Franzen, Crossroads: A Novel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, October 5, 2021)
Photos: DK @ Daybreak. 6:15 to 6:435 am, January 7, 2022. 28° F, feels like 17° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. (More pictures from this morning here.)
First Snow @ Daybreak. 6:28 to 6:53 am, December 24, 2021. 29° F, feels like 24° F. (-2° C feels like -4° C). Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. (More shots from this morning @dkct25 on Instagram)
Notes:
Daybreak. Snow. 6:40 am, February 19, 2021. 29° F, feels like 19° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT.
Photo: DK. Daybreak. Light Rain. 6:15 am. to 7:00 am, February 2, 2021. 33° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT.
Photos: DK @ Daybreak. Snow flurries. 6:05 am. to 6:28 am, February 1, 2021. 26° F, feels like 11° F, wind gusts up to 44 mph. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT.
Daybreak. December 17, 2020. 6:45 to 7:20 am. 24° F. Feels like 9° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford CT
Q: Is the image based on something you saw? How did it come to you?
“More than being based on something I saw, I would say it comes from something I experience often. I was trying to capture the feeling of being immersed in a book to the exclusion of everything around you. I think my love for reading comes more from the need to connect with my inner reality than from the desire to escape the external one. Proust described it perfectly as “that fertile miracle of communication that takes effect in solitude.” …
My first time in New York was in 2010, when I spent three months there, during the winter. My most vivid memories are connected to that first stay. I remember big blue skies, ice-cold feet, hot black coffees, fresh bagels, and huge pizza slices.
The gif was animated by the talented Jose Lorenzo. I often collaborate with him—I love the way he brings my images to life. We didn’t want the image to be too frenetic. For me, it was important to maintain that feeling of peace and timelessness that happens when you’re reading. I also wanted to show how easy it can be to find your own quiet place in the city without having to go far out of your way.”
~ Anna Parini, in response a question from Françoise Mouly, on this week’s cover in The New Yorker, which shows a rare moment of calm amid the bustle of a new year. Parini, who has contributed illustrations to the magazine since 2015, grew up in Milan but is now based in Barcelona. Mouly spoke to Parini about New York’s wintry charms and the process of creating an animated cover image.
(Source: Anna Parini’s “A New Leaf”, The New Yorker, January 7, 2019)
And Lindsay captures it wonderfully in her photo above and in her post titled “Snow Falling” – while I sit here in darkness, early this morning, watching snow fall on Christmas Eve:
“There is something absolutely magical about snow falling. I am always in awe of the eerie silence that falls around the house as it lightly touches down on our roof and the ground around us. I love how from somewhere it picks up little hints of light so it resembles glitter falling all around you…It was magnificent. It was glorious to be able to lean up against the window and just watch the big flakes fall luxuriously down around us. Something about snow makes me feel like a little kid all over again.”
Inspired by: “—light snow, silence, the empty streets, the fog, thrilling cold—so much beauty. Like breathing pure oxygen.” ~ Susan Sontag, from As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks 1964-1980
53° F on Friday.
39° on Saturday morning.
Spring!
So when it started at 7 pm last night, it felt anything but that. A December feeling in February.
Large, wet flakes, falling softly.
I turn off the television. Enough Mueller, Trump, collusion, and spit from the talking heads on Cable. Dirty. Ugly.
Light from the street lamps paint the fresh snow with a soft amber glow. Magical. “This voice keeps whispering in my other ear…I get this peaceful easy feeling…”
I watch from the window inside.
Mother and Son build a snowman, Eric is days from his 24th birthday. They’re giggling.
Flashbacks. Rosy cheeks. Over sized mittens. Snow pants swishing. Arms swinging up and down, angels in snow. What’s this portrait missing? Rachel who couldn’t make it home for the weekend. And Zeke. Yes, Zeke loved the snow. Snow flakes melting on his velvety reddish brown fur. Barking, and barking and barking at Dad who chases the kids and pelts them with snowballs. Who you protecting these days Bud? [Read more…]
Let me seek then,
the gift of silence and solitude,
where everything I touch is turned into a prayer:
where the sky is my prayer,
the birds are my prayer,if
the wind in the trees is my prayer…
— Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude
Notes:
You wake up on a winter morning and pull up the shade, and what lay there the evening before is no longer there – the sodden gray yard, the dog droppings, the tire tracks in the frozen mud, the broken lawn chair you forgot to take in last fall. All this has disappeared overnight, and what you look out on is not the snow of Narnia but the snow of home, which is no less shimmering and white as it falls. The earth is covered with it, and it is falling still in silence so deep that you can hear its silence. It is snow to be shoveled, to make driving even worse than usual, snow to be joked about and cursed at, but unless the child in you is entirely dead, it is snow, too, that can make the heart beat faster when it catches you by surprise that way, before your defenses are up. It is snow that can awaken memories of things more wonderful than anything you ever knew or dreamed.
– Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale
Notes:
In the postcard I keep of a field in winter,
a child’s head is tilted back,
her mouth open to snow.
The awe is held still, says oh and oh and oh.
— Allison Benis White, from Please Bury Me in This
Notes:
Live & Learn 