Chris Egnoto's Blog : March 7 Snow Storm

Chris Egnoto's Blog : March 7 Snow Storm: I just wrote myself an article on spring about a week ago. In this article I went on to say that March is often the month that bea...

March 7 Snow Storm

I just wrote myself an article on spring about a week ago. In this article I went on to say that March is often the month that bears the most intense weather of the year. While the warm spells of March are of the variety that send countless families to the park to enjoy the treat and soak in the promise of even more beautiful days ahead, winter still drops in with all its passion from time to time, just to remind us that it hasn’t quite left the building yet. This is now one of those nights. I am sitting here typing this at one in the morning (Mar 7th) and I gotta tell you, the snow is coming down in flakes the size of doves feathers! It started about 25 minutes ago and it is a sight to behold. It was raining for the past couple of hours and now that famous arctic air mass has moved in to waltz with the warmer moist air from the tropical Atlantic near the equator. It has made the biggest snowflakes I have seen in years. The fresh smell of the snow falling, mixed with the fragrant gases emitted from special bacteria spring soil is famous for, is nothing short of exquisite. Oh how I wish I was in the woods right now. Sitting under the tangled vines and holly, that seem to catch the snow and form a rounded canopy. Like sitting in a tent with the door unzipped. I know of such a spot. I have enjoyed its embrace many times. This spot shares the company of giant beech trees, maples, hickories and oaks. Hollies, pines and viburnums. And a half dozen species of shrubs and bushes for several acres. I am longing to be in that space right now. Where deer and foxes tip toe about the night, to get a final meal before the storm puts its full back into it. A million white petals of frozen water floating down from the great black sky above. Listening to the snow delicately fall and tumble off the dried beech leaves of last years growing season and hearing it meet the Earth, is just about my favorite thing to do in the cooler months of the year. I would be sitting there. In total serenity. Perhaps I would be walking about the meadow between the two stands of woodland or laying in my favorite tree. Maybe just cozied up with my sleeping bag, underneath a simple tarp tied between two of those growing pillars and out of humanly sight. Taking it in. Appreciating all of it. 

 
       Unfortunately, I am sitting on the floor of a closet in the apartment my Mom and brother live in. The apartment is in a decent area. Clean and safe. But it is too urban around here. Too developed. Shopping malls, strip malls, highways and streetlights. Everywhere. Every building has a flat roof. Every sound is a report of human population in full bloom. The rain I heard earlier and the snow I hear now, is that which you hear spinning off car tires sailing down the road. The footsteps of deer are replaced by those of nameless tenants on the other side of a couple of layers of drywall and some two by fours. The occasional trees I see, are surrounded by stamps of grass and lakes of concrete. I have no home of my own right now. No car or sense of security in fact. But, my people are nice and good to me here. They make me feel very welcome. I love my family, and I am lucky to have all I have. It is my home away from home. My dog and the woman I love are a hundred miles away. They love me, too. I think about them, and I think about how nice it would be to be able to turn my head and look at them. To hug them tightly. I get up frequently, to peer out the window of the family room. The room has no furniture in it and so I have a small sense of adventure. Like an animal holding up for the night while away from its den. I see the snow catching the glare of the light outside the window as it summersaults on through its beam. 

I so need a place of my own. In an area that is more…me. A place in the country, or perhaps just beside a considerable sized forest. A place of nature, where I can grab my backpack, a sandwich and something nice to drink and venture on out. Out into this gorgeous weather that always seems to pull at me like a dog on a leash. “Come with me” it says. “How can you stay inside while this masterpiece is taking place?” “I can’t” I say. “Maybe next year I will be free again. Maybe next year will be the year I can come back to life”.  As the snow falls, I try to think of it as the obstacles in my life falling to the ground. Falling away to set me free again. Free to soak up Mother Nature - to journey out and immerse myself into creation like a colt set loose from the starting gate. I am no colt, I assure you, but I am aching to get out of my cage! I feel like I reach out at life with both hands, only to stub my fingers on a wall of glass that I forgot was there. That glass can be thick. Yeah, my body hurts and all, but my spirit hurts greater. Give me freedom. And give me the means to appreciate that freedom. My spirit cherishes great creation. And it can’t stand to miss another second.                    

   - Chris Egnoto 

     March 2018