Bright Moonlight
In bright moonlight the shadows of trees are sharp on the crusted snow – each branch, each twig. Winter compensates for its inconveniences with breathtaking beauty. Icicles threaten gutters, but they are alive with light when the sun is out. The fields shine so brightly we need sunglasses. Across the landscape there is the vivid contrast between white snow and black tree trunks, black fence posts, red barns, the rows of brown stubble from last season’s corn.
The deer who live down the hill from us leave their crisp trails, showing us just where they’ve wandered looking for food. We have Juniper trees near the south wall of the house, and the deer have left circles of hoofprints around them where they stood on their hind legs to reach the lowest branches for a bit of green to eat. They’ve crisscrossed Louise’s yard next door, looking for the peanuts she always left for them during the cold months. I can’t explain to them that she’s moved into an assisted living facility in Oneonta and won’t be back to look out for them. Her son Brett is looking after her house until the kids decide what to do with it in the spring, but he doesn’t look after the deer. I miss Louise, an excellent neighbor, but probably not as much as the deer and birds she fed through the hungry months miss her.
We haven’t seen temperatures above freezing for quite a while. It keeps the snow crisp and beautiful, but it has its challenges. Getting dressed takes a lot longer, putting on long john’s, socks, pants, sweaters, scarves, coats, hats, boots and gloves. And still, the frosty wind stings my cheeks just walking from the car to the toasty gym. Then the process is partly reversed, shedding gloves, boots, hats, coats and scarves. The floor near the cubbies where we store our gear is perpetually muddy with the dirt and snow we track in, no matter how often it’s cleaned.
The gym is the warm heart of the community, and more so since the senior center found space there. On Mondays and Thursdays there are games, puzzles, book groups, lectures, projects, classes and soup lunches. And every weekday afternoon the gym fills with the children who troop through the snow from the nearby schools in the daily parade. It’s not unusual for us to have near a quorum of League of Women Voters board members visiting in the roomy lobby after classes or rock wall climbing or walking on the indoor track or swimming. The gym is where we stay fit physically and socially, where we see ourselves as a community from the littlest toddlers to the grey haired set. Where we see what binds us, not what separates us. It is a gift of winter that we are gathered indoors together, that we can all talk about our common enemies – winds that are too cold, ice that is too slippery, mountains of snow that are too high.
The farmers’ market stays lively. Like the gym, the farmers market gathers us in community, cold perhaps, and layered over with clothes, but glad to see each other, and glad to have the market a bit less crowded. Chloe and Hannah have bread, bagels and scones for us, and delicious cardamom buns. Heller farms has potatoes, apples, all the root vegetables, lettuce, spinach and a few other things grown in green houses. The basket lady made us a custom basket for Hazel, the cat. Brian, who sells maple syrup, is the Supervisor on the New Lisbon Town Council and has a lot to discuss with Jay. Alas, Alex is no longer there with his amazing soups and marinara sauce. He died a few months ago – a great loss to the community.
It’s easy these days to see all the things that are frighteningly wrong with this country. But here in small town winter it’s easy to see all that’s right with it. The settler spirit of looking out for neighbors is alive and well here. Old people’s driveways and sidewalks are cleared by kind neighbors. Our noses are red, and sometimes our hands are blue with cold, but the red and blue tribes celebrate community together in the winter. Nobody asks about your politics if your car slides off an icy road into a ditch – you’re just helped. The foe is only winter, as beautiful as it is in moonlight.