音频下载[点击右键另存为][00:00.86]Passage 50 Snow and the Passage of Time

[00:05.78]Any snowfall which brings traffic to a standstill

[00:10.38]and closes schools takes me back to one particular storm in my youth on the shores of Lake Area.

[00:18.15]On that day, schools and stores were closed because of the weather.

[00:22.96]What resonates for me is a six-block walk I took with my father from our house to the post office.

[00:31.72]He bought me stamps for my recently started stamp collection.

[00:36.85]I already had a wild assortment of cancelled stamps from around the world.

[00:42.65]He brought me brand-new stamps.

[00:45.50]I can retrace the route in my mind, walking on snow-covered sidewalks and streets.

[00:52.40]It was unusual to be going for a walk with my father on a weekday and so close to home.

[01:00.27]In the following years, I never talked about that walk with him,

[01:05.42]I never even thought about it until it appeared to me about a decade ago.

[01:11.54]A winter memory now returned to the forefront.

[01:15.80]The elderly are said to be in the winter of their lives,

[01:20.40]and winter is synonymous with the end of life.

[01:24.89]That does not make the winter the Grim Reaper; rather,

[01:30.05]it is a time of reflection in those for whom childhood is long gone.

[01:36.38]My father died in the summer of 1997.

[01:40.97]For me, his final months resembled the patterns of settling in for winter,

[01:47.76]a turning inward and slowing down.

[01:51.26]In the end, his breath grew shallower until there was just the quiet.

[01:58.04]There are emotional powers that accompany the season,

[02:02.20]a blanket of white ties the landscape into a continuous and undulating hall.

[02:08.87]The curve of hillsides in the foundations of houses all is connected.

[02:14.53]The season keeps us indoors.

[02:17.26]Our thoughts and feelings turn inward.

[02:20.43]I'm visiting Southern California as I write this,

[02:24.95]a place where winter expresses itself as rain.

[02:28.89]It would be easy to live in a climate where there are no freezing temperatures snow,

[02:35.89]but I would still define the shape of the year by winter

[02:40.27]as I knew it from my childhood.