Revelation in Snow and Woods
by Thad DeVassie
The storm arrives as forecasted, hurling inches upon inches of late-season snow. The internet is intermittent, then no longer. Accumulation proves too heavy for hoisted power lines. This will require manual work, the wood stove, a return to candles. Trudging toward the depths of the back forty in search of wood, I see the land differently: Is this my woods? Can I claim to have woods? A neighbor is in foraging mode, about an eighth of a mile away. It is a distance too far to call out his name, a name I do not know. Breathing in frozen air, I feel acute ice-burns in my nostrils, a rattling in my lungs like an excited pinball leaping against protective glass. I think about those pinball machines at the arcade while brushing snow off a pile of brush, how we pined to go, to play our youth away in noisy, dimly lit rooms before settling into home video. I walk back to the house with an armful of skinny logs and kindling, wondering if it will be enough until the power returns. I miss the agents of distraction when they are removed. Silence and self-awareness are heavy burdens to bear. The weight of late winter snow muffles and mutes most things, affords echoes of old to emerge as if played quietly on a phonograph, scratchy and nostalgic. There is the echo of my father from the only family vacation we ever took, playing in his matter-of-fact cadence: Never fall in love with place or destination. It is meant to be left behind, abandoned by those who claim to love it, temporarily. Places, destinations accept this and adapt, even thrive. You will, too. Try as one might to lift the needle from engrained memory, to hear a new song without old refrains. Much to his disdain, I imagine, I fell in love with solitude, with all its trappings, a place unto itself. One partially inhabited, partially abandoned, visibly neglected; one awaiting its keeper to fall for it, to be its meticulous caretaker, making it a respectable place where unnamed neighbors drop off fresh-baked bread in times of need, and then break it. It being the necessary starter to unwind a lifetime of false teachings, of unlearning how to stay at arm’s distance, where an embrace isn’t a prelude to heartache, and connection means something entirely different.
Thad DeVassie is a multi-genre writer and painter who creates from the outskirts of Columbus, Ohio. He is the author of three chapbooks including This Side of Utopia (Cervena Barva Press, 2023). Find his words and art at www.thaddevassie.com.