Yesterday, at a very timely time, I had a personal epiphany. It happens to me sometimes. God taps me on the head, or the shoulder, or just gives me a little shove. Funny how it should happen right about the time of THE Epiphany. Like I said, God laughs at me sometimes.
Yesterday, Bob had decided we needed to drive to Houghton to pick something up. The weather looked, as the weather often does in my neck of the northwoods, pretty decent at the place we started out, only to become pretty crummy, then a lot crummy, then dangerously crummy, then IMPOSSIBLY, PERHAPS FATALLY crummy within the space of just a few miles.
So I did what I usually do when I am in a semi-panic state and Bob is driving, and I am trying really hard not to notice that we cannot see the road, or the sky, or the trees, or oncoming cars, trucks and snowmobiles. I pull out my iPhone and look for distractions that keep me from looking at the road, and especially from making noises every time the aforementioned landmarks disappear entirely for long moments of blinding, swirling, slippery WHITE.
Bob is Job. He has the patience of several saints when he is driving me about in the winter. Because there am I, sighing and gasping and whatever it is I do (I don't want to think about this...I am a crazy woman, I know), while he is keeping the car beautifully under control.
It was bad all the way to Houghton. Doesn't help that we haven't driven to Houghton a million times, and so don't know by heart all the curves like those around Painesdale and South Range. Because you couldn't see them. Even the signs were completely covered with snow, so it was pretty rough knowing what the road was going to do. Even when we got to the top of the hill to go down into Houghton, you couldn't see either Houghton or Hancock ahead. Or Walmart. Etcetera. I forgot to mention we saw a snowmobile driver miss a possibly fatal crash by a couple of car lengths as he accidentally popped over the top of a snow drift and onto the busy highway. Bad. Bad.
So. We got to Houghton. Made the pick up. We went to get a bite to eat. I realized halfway through eating that I was glaring at Bob. I think I was mad or in shock or something. The trip was important, had to be done, and Bob drove fabulously. But it was a completely surreal moment, having lunch like nothing had just happened.
We got back in the car and started home. And, thank God, there were moments where it just wasn't quite as bad, followed by a lot of moments where it was just as bad. But something had happened.
I started looking at the snow. Jesus....I have never in my life personally seen so much snow. 200+ inches of snowfall makes for a lot of it laying about on the ground. There is a lot of snow in the UP...just saying.
You know last winter was my first winter in the UP. And you know it was mild. Hence my surprise at seeing a somewhat more normal amount of snow for this area.
And it is so beautiful. Beyond beautiful. The sheer depth of it is awesome. How it covers every branch and twig is amazing. How it droops over the edges of rooflines is comical. I call it the "snowflakes holding hands" how it can stretch out and stick together and not fall.
The epiphany was this. Suddenly I was not a bit afraid. Even in the blinding white, because I trusted Bob completely to do his best to keep us safe. His best is very, very good, by the way. I was suddenly free to look and enjoy and gasp and sigh not in fear but in awe of this beautiful land that I now call my home.
And I was free to take pictures. Sometimes of blinding white. But mostly of snow and trees and beauty.
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| Most the the drive to Houghton...I don't see the road, either. |
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| A little bit better, but where is the road? |
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| The way back home...much better! |
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| Amazing, yes? |
I hope it sticks, this feeling, just like the snow sticks on everything around here. I hope I can continue to feel just the awesome gratitude I feel for the wonders of this particular aspect of God's creation. I think it was a gift, this little epiphany moment. I don't know if I deserved it. But I am grateful.
You should come here sometime in the winter, Iowa folks, and folks from other lands as well. Maybe you'd be afraid at first, too, like I was. But stick around, and you will get used to it. God will give you a shove, if you need it. I guarantee it.
Stay safe and warm, my friends.
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| A few random pics of today's visitors to my yard....female pheasant |
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| Male Purple Finch |
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| Male pheasant meets deery deers |
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