As it Was and Ever Shall Be...

"For how can one know color in perpetual green, and what good is warmth without cold to give it sweetness?" 

-John Steinbeck, Travels With Charley

 To me, snow is a kind of miracle. It comes stealthily while we sleep, covering this entire broken city in a blanket of glistening white. There is a deep peacefulness that accompanies each snowfall, and something miraculous about the way it changes a landscape. The barren lifelessness of winter, the grimy streets and uneven sidewalks, the withered flowers and mangled trees, are redeemed in the beauty of a clean blanket of snow. As quickly as it appears, it is gone. We are left once again with the cold lifelessness of winter; we are left yearning for redemption.

And our yearning is always fulfilled through the miracle of spring. The daffodils, dormant since the previous year, push their way through the once frozen soil, and announce the promise of better days. We can put away our winter coats, take a walk in the fresh air, and enjoy the sweetness of green grass and budding trees. Sweet, because we have yearned for it through the long, difficult winter. Sweeter still, because it is temporary; the warmth will fade, the leaves will fall, the beauty of spring and the fullness of summer will inevitably retreat to the emptiness of late autumn.

And so it is again and again.

And again.

Life.

Death.

Rebirth.

Each season brings with it a yearning for the next.

Each season has its own redemption.

Again and again.

And again.