Nightglow Window

The Waltz Of The Snowflakes

The flannel sheets are warm and it's hard to pry myself out of bed, but I can hear that the girls are up in the next room.

6:45 a.m. and groggy. Outside huge flakes drift down, blanketing the trees that were blown clear yesterday afternoon. I pad downstairs and Terry is standing at the window. Coffee is on. It’s supposed to be a golf day today, sixteen miles away and 4,000 feet lower.

It doesn't look good.

Terry is a good guy. I like him. Being hubbie number 5 is its own row to hoe, but he's good for Debbie. He's a truck driver for Wal-Mart, and drives about 2,300 miles a week. Their house is warm, cozy, paneled in wood, and they've been here about a year and a half.

It's a Mozart Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra (K. 622) type of morning. Serene as the flakes come down and my calves are warmed by the fire.

The waltz of the snowflakes progresses outside, and me with nothing to do but drift in thought with them. Lots to ponder. Lots to enjoy as the mind blanks and daydreams commence. It's a byproduct of the current epoch, the latest season of my life.

Enough.

I grab some coffee (blech, Folgers) and drift back down to earth, steeling myself for a long day errantly swinging the clubs in the rain.

I needn't have worried, the golf pro down below waves us off when Terry phones: too cold and wet. The day opens up again and I'm back out in the snowflakes. Drifting.

Enough looking. I get dressed and put my boots back on and plan my escape out the front door.

The girls are upstairs watching Willy Wonka, blanket tucked under their chins. I bounce on their bed as the Chocolate Factory boat careens through the tunnel, Oompa Loompa's spinning the paddlewheel like a dervish, and I maniacally repeat that wonderful bit of Gene Wilder verse. Sydney rolls her eyes at me. Hannah looks at me quizzically—amused, vaguely concerned.

Christy is in the shower. I tell Terry that I'll be back (Maybe. Someday.) and selfishly make a break for the door. Freedom. Not too cold and K. 622 still plays in my head as I head down the road, cut across a slope (the snow piling high around my boots) and down into Camp Nelson Meadow, a wide open space bordered by towering Red Cedars on one side. The northern horizon of mountains drifts in and out of focus with the passing snow showers.

I look back at my tracks, which alone mar the wide field and the sudden silence is profound. Not a hint of wind down here, only the soft rustle of snow as it slides off my shoulders. In the distance a snowplow breaks into my thoughts and I continue to walk.

Make it to Nelson's Place, but I hesitate at the stairs. Do I really want to see Ken? It will be the same ol' bullshit and you couldn't stand him when he was married to Debbie, I tell myself. So why bother? Looks warm inside though. Strange. He probably sees me from inside. I'll wait a ten count and see what happens.

The sounds of the snow and muffled voices from inside. The wind picks up.

I back off slowly and head across the street, up to the Lodge. A sign hangs in the window that reads "Closed For Winter."

Hopelessly optimistic, that one.

I head back around to the rear of the building and the parking lot is a foot deep of fluffy powder with a thin crust of popcorn, dry and granular like Styrofoam. I squeeze off a few photos, hiding in the Cedars so I don't make too easy a target for the morning drunks at Nelson's as they stare at me over their fourth Bloody Mary, the yoke of addiction.

Dvorak sneaks in—just as good as Mozart—as I move between the red pillars, the wind now blowing snow down from the high branches, wind song in their boughs, mini blizzard below. Snow piles in my hair, down my neck. Cello Concerto in h minor op. 104 - Allegro. Yes, allegro all the way back to the meadow as the vaguely Slavic tune plays in my head. Images of Zhivago, walking home, so desperately alone, after escaping the Red Army, ice in his beard.

I need to shave, but the similarities end there. Spaced on most of the toiletry kit and I've been stealing Sydney's toothbrush, but you just can't fake a clean shave. The snowplow lays on his horn and the blast echoes through the valley.

The plows have made the roads damn slippery and I climb back up the bank. The houses above drift in and out of the clouds. One house is especially spectral. Fort like as it hangs over the valley. As I pull off my boots in the warm house, I ask Terry about it.

He knows which one I'm talking about immediately. It's Ned Beatty's house, the famous local. Debbie comes into the room and tells me how he once asked her not to stock Deliverance at the market (back when she ran the show). Even after all these years, could he actually be embarrassed by the "Squeal Like A Pig" scene. What a strange burden to carry for so many years. I'd be more embarrassed about Superman.

He sounds a tad eccentric; tales of sitting on the floor of the market reading soup labels, of a living room filled with a gigantic table and chairs (no couches or other furniture), and wandering in for coffee with dirty torn overalls. Success grants a certain eccentricity and I'm all for it. I heartily applaud the harmlessly strange, the interestingly off kilter. No wonder the locals love him in this slow mountain backwater.

10:30 a.m. and the day's writing is done. A thousand words are easy when snowflakes waltz and Dvorak is your walking companion.


The Camp Nelson Meadow


The Lodge


Punk Rock Snowman