There are those nights of white and wonder
wherein all has a silver shine.
with many a gleaming star - a sign
as though to guide the shepherds yonder
towards a new infant divine.
Beginning of Rilke's Nights of white and wonder
One of the most magical moments is opening the curtains in the morning just to find the world wrapped in a layer of white cold embrace, snow glittering in the sunlight.
That's not what happened today; as much as I long for snow - this winter appears brittle.
As someone from the North of Germany, an area between two seas that tend to store warmth - snow hasn't been a regular visitor in my childhood. Yet - or maybe because of that - whenever it did happen, we cherished every moment of it.
Staying outdoors long beyond the point of numb fingers and red cheeks.
I still remember once the cold lasted so long (it probably was, at best, 2 weeks, but it felt much longer), it forced us to leave the house earlier than usual to venture to school - as our paths were layered with an ever-increasing blanket of ice and snow. It was fun. None of our walks went by without at least one of us losing their balance.
When living in Tokyo, there was one night of white and wonder. Where the city lay in silence, and thick snowflakes fell on my coat as I walked through the otherwise obnoxiously colorful city, now dipped in the numbing embrace of winter.
I felt anything but numb walking through this, despite my sneakers being a sorry attempt at keeping my feet dry. I felt alive, made little snowballs, and threw them over an empty playground.
The next morning, it was nearly all gone - had I dreamed it all along? No, as my soaked sneakers were proof of it, and so was the ensuing cold.
More recently, the winter I moved to Dresden was freezing. I recall my toes going numb after an evening at the Christmas Market. I also went on long walks along the river, trying to bottle up the landscape in my mind, burning it into my memory - for the rest of the winter - as a refuge from the grey.
Snow is the ultimate example of something that escapes our grasp.
We can't force it - as much as we try - and do with fake snows in ski resorts that attempt to draw out their inevitable, climate-change-induced death. But does it feel the same?
I have no way of knowing. I've never been part of the social class that skis (nor did I live in a place where it'd be a mode of transport in winter).
Nevertheless, I suspect a snow guarantee can never trigger the same feeling of amazement whenever I wake up surprised to see my usual world transformed.
We can't store snow; I bet you, too, tried as a kid, smuggling snowballs into the freezer - only to realize that they turned into something else. The same material, but not snow anymore.
Snow slows us down; it forces us to improvise and maybe reminds us that another world is possible. It encourages us to play, and there aren't a few adults who will be the first to jump in, supposedly to show the kids how to build a snowman or draw snow angels with their bodies.
In an article I recently read, the writer speculated that snow has a way of stroking our souls, providing a ray of light in otherwise grey winters.
Pragmatic modern men might suggest at this point that if I love snow so much, I should just go travel to places where it snows.
To that, I say that's missing the point. Part of its magic is the change in the world I see every day. The suggestion is another symptom of what the sociologist Hartmut Rosa describes as the attempt to capture and make more and more of the world available to us. The closest measure for that is economic success, the more wealth - the more world you can access.
And yet, even though we have more opportunities just a swipe away than before, we're not much happier for it. Even if someone travels to the Alps for their guaranteed snow experience, they might not find it fulfilling. The pressure to have a good time because it's the much-awaited holidays probably does little to help.
The older I get, the more I realize that to change, to be transformed, to feel alive - it does not take much.
Or maybe it does take a lot in a world that suggests we should be constantly distracted by distractions of distractions (to quote T.S. Elliot) - chasing the next big thing. It bears asking: when is it enough? The answer is seemingly never.
And yet, the more world we have accessible, the less we seem to be in tune with it.
The first instinct when we see a snowflake is to capture it with a phone to share it online, feeding into the perpetual stream of the constant present.
Doing so, we rob ourselves of the chance to take in what we see, listen to the world around us and ourselves (something I argued before: we need to do more), and have things talk to us.
"He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder or stand rapt in awe is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."
Albert Einstein
Maybe snow is like time. The more we try to control it - even if by capturing it with our devices - the more it escapes us.
Maybe in a world obsessed with control and ends - always striving for the next goal, the next thing to master - one of the most radical things to do is just to let it be. To watch. To listen.
A recent poem collection by Rilke I bought is titled: You don't need to understand life.
In a world where understanding is merely seen as a stepping stone to control - I agree.
There's no fun telling someone, "Oh look, snow." - when their only response is to lay out all its physical properties, not understanding what you were actually trying to convey, your sense of wonder.
Losing your cool at times - totally worth it.
Rilke captured it perfectly with the second part of his poem.
Widespread, as under diamond layers,
appear both meadows and the sea,
and in the hearts in dreamlike glee
a faith ascends, that needs no prayers,
performing wonders silently.
You can find the German original here.
Thanks for reading 💚
I might expose myself as a hopeless romantic, but hey, that's a label I can live with.
