The Sound of Snow

If you listen carefully, you can hear the weather outside. Last night was peculiarly quiet with snow. I didn’t really listen all night, but the absence of sounds was vivid with me as I slept. In the quiet darkness I dreamt I was given a complex problem to solve. There were four elements involved in the issue. They were presented on a clipboard and I had to come up with a solution. The problem wasn’t clear. There wasn’t enough information. But I dutifully worked hard on the problem, thereby creating a problem for myself.

The dream went on and on, as I am both a dedicated dreamer and a hard worker. I suppose I am most familiar with myself when I am working hard. As a younger man leading a small internship-based school, I was often exhausted and overwhelmed by the pace of my work. When I began to investigate why the boss (me) was making me work so hard, I realized that I was only comfortable when I was working hard. There was always so much to do—so many problems arising and so much that couldn’t be fixed—that only when I was at a near frantic pitch did I feel like I had a plausible excuse for not setting everything right.

My unconscious operational theory was: ‘You can’t be blamed for what doesn’t get done if you’re visibly and earnestly working hard all the time.’ It turns out not to really be true. But I also noticed that when I slowed down, I felt more guilty about all that was undone. How could I not give my all when there was so much more to do? Hard work was a shelter, a pre-emptive escape from the awareness of all that is undone. Exhaustion was preferable, for a time, to the discomforting realization of my inability to control and fix the universe. (These days, and at this point in my life, I spend much more of my time leaning and easing into the manifest realization of my lack of control.)

The other factor was, and is, I love to be engaged. Working hard, getting things done is fun. To give myself to something (like writing every morning) that requires attention and effort is clearly what I am designed to do. Like the sled dogs that love to pull. When you harness them to the sled, the main thing to remember is to secure the sled to a tree, or the excited dogs already tied in will run off with the sled before the final dogs are engaged.

My dream problem last night was a difficult one. After much tossing and turning and partial waking, a solution emerged. I realized (for the umpteenth time) that the problem was not the problem. The four elements on the clipboard could be combined in any number of ways. The only stable solution was to be present with the people around the clipboard.

This was not a satisfying solution at first. I abandoned it several times to back to the familiar sense of working hard. Then, in a combination of exhaustion and insight I realized that abandoning focus on the purported problem was the only true solution. The four elements on the clipboard could be continually reshuffled, some combinations would work better than others, but there could be no resolution in that realm. And it wasn’t even about getting the people around the clipboard to do anything or be in any certain relationship, it was just being present with them. That’s my real job. That’s the durable resolution: resting in the web of dynamic relationships.

That was the revelation in the long silence of last night’s snow. Now, in the early morning, the beams of streetlights sparkle with the fine and cold falling snow. The wind sounds a low and ominous hum. Pleasant Street is wonderfully vacant. Like the ancient days of the early pandemic, this main thoroughfare lies empty. Just an occasionally truck going slowly. The hard-driving lawyers are not driving into the office to produce early morning billable hours and the early morning cleaners too are sleeping late.

The grand gears of corporeal life have mercifully slowed with the snow. Though the high pitched inaudible whine of the internet will screech forcefully on and a day of work will appear for most of us, the wind and the continuing snow will keep us safely contained within our warm homes. (Here I insert a quick prayer for those with minimal or no shelter. May they be find warmth and safety in the midst of these life-threatening conditions.)

Later this morning, the same snow will drive some of us to the streets and sidewalks to clear paths and have neighborly conversations about the weather. I promise to pay as much attention to our idle chatter as I do to the snow we are clearing.