murky harmonies (a feeling for snow)

I had even dreamt about it …. about thick layers of snow keeping us inside, about the whole world turned white.  So I woke, filled with expectation, not even minding the early hour which ruined my Sunday rest.  I pulled back the curtains, and … bof …. some white patches here and there – on rooftops, in gardens -  some melting snow flocks twirling in the light of the street lamps. 

But nothing like the avalanches of snow forecast the previous day.  The young woman in the bakery shared my disappointment:  “all that fuss and then that “, she said, while putting my croissants in a bag, and then pointing dismissively at the wet drizzle outside.

But in these muffled, restrained times, we collectively try to make the most of what little pleasures the weather does bestow on us. In the Bois de la Cambre, adults and children alike had decided that even a millimeter of snow allowed to slide down slippery slopes on a sled. Slithering & tumbling, their excited cries echoed amongst the trees. 

And I too came to appreciate this particular wintry & wet mixture – not the dazzling white of a snowy landscape, but the murky harmony of earthy browns & grey mixed with broken white.  The kind of scrambled dusky landscape the 19th century painter Guillaume Vogels was so keen to render.