The Yarn That Darns The Sock

Thoughts about January, Snow and Joy

“Winter, Shakertown. Marvelous, vast, silent, white open spaces around the old buildings put up by the Shakers at Pleasant Hill a hundred or a hundred and fifty years ago…..cold, pure light. Some great old trees. I took some photographs but it was so cold my finger could no longer feel the shutter release. Marvelous subjects. I have no way of explaining how the bare, blank side of an old frame house with some broken windows can be so indescribably beautiful. The Shaker builders—like all their craftsmen—had the gift of achieving perfect forms. There is nothing so good anywhere in Kentucky. Those few moments of eloquent silence in the snow stay with me, follow me home, do not go away.” -Thomas Merton

South Central Indiana received over a foot of snow in the past couple of days. When it started coming down it was light and powdery, but as the day unfolded the snow became heavy and truly blanketed everything in white. The trees around my home look like thickly iced sugar cookies, a frosting of snow on the tops of branches and along one side of their trunks. This coating of snow makes the forest look as articulated as an pen and ink drawing, a hillside of strong dramatic dark lines and snow white verticals.