Field Notes: The Second Day Of The Year
Field Notes: The Second Day Of The Year
The day we were officially released from âthe holidaysâ this year bore the date 01/02/2010 â a numerical palindrome that defied direction by simultaneously coming and going. The day itself, a Saturday, was quite pleasant precisely because of its lack of direction. It required nothing of us. No early rising, no early retiring. No traditions to keep, no pressure to innovate. The future would be delayed a couple of days because it was snowing.
On the back side of a norâeaster that pummeled Maine, we were spared its severest blows. Yet the storm did a fair amount of bobbing, weaving and backpedaling, so the big dust-up in Vacationland settled down on us in a light snow carried on heavy north winds. Across fields and farm ponds, the wind laid down snow and then picked it up again, sometimes acres at a time, as if it had been stowed momentarily in reserve for use elsewhere. The up and down snowing was simultaneously coming and going. Confounded ground-feeding juncos had to navigate to their earthbound meals through skeins of snow twisting skyward from form to formlessness, like ghosts freed from their marbled cemeteries.
On the second day of the year, winter acted as if it owned 2010 by freezing the future in place. But beneath the snow and the farm pond ice, beneath clear black water and blankets of mud, sleeping turtles dreamed of April.