We have been vacillating between snowy days and non-snowy days here in central Maryland, as if winter cannot make up her mind. Earlier this week there was no snow and then just under 4 inches and now again, the absence of snow. This morning I was outside feeding the birds, while our black furry monster ran around the yard in gleeful jumps and spurts, and the snow had paused its swirling dance. In its place came the soft tapping of sleet, like the quiet plink of a distant xylophone, with only a handful of different notes.

Our crazy black furry monster, aka the dog, slid across our sidewalk on said sleet while chasing her ball. She desperately wanted me to play and I desperately did not want to. “Momma doesn’t want to break her arm or leg or your beautiful black silky tail,” I told her. Getting her to come indoors is like trying to get a toddler eating their favorite ice cream to stop eating. Never going to happen without treats and lots of them. Finally, we are back indoors, and I am typing this in front of a crackling fire. Every move I make, to her, is signal that it is time to take a walk. Sorry, my little furry monster, not today.

But tomorrow, ah tomorrow, will be 60 degrees and if you accept the predictions being made, winter’s switch will flip on again, as we are promised 11-14 inches of snow starting Wednesday. Tomorrow, my furry friend, tomorrow we will go on a LONG walk and also on Monday and Tuesday to prep for potentially no walks later this week.

School districts are over their allotted snow days for the year and as they look towards the distant shores of summer, their year is getting longer with each snowfall. If more snow comes, districts may appeal to the state for an exemption. As a teacher, I’m hoping for one of 2 things: no more snow days OR so many that the exemption is granted. Let the snow fall, I say, like a wild zealot, uncontrollable.

When almost 4 inches fell earlier this week, I was outside with our furry monster playing ball, when I paused – half of me lost in the motion of a throw, half caught in the stillness of the moment – and listened. The silence of snow is like nothing else, as if Earth is exhaling slowly, suspending everything in time. I did not hear the buzz of local traffic. I did not hear any tinkling branches in the wind, or the chirping of birds. I heard snow falling – quiet, deliberate, endless.

Why is that?

Why do snowy days illicit peacefulness, as if the world itself were taking a moment of rest?

Sound travels on waves, bending and oscillating through the air and eventually into our funnel shaped ears. Our three tiniest bones – the smallest one equal to the thickness of 3 strands of our hair – grab those waves and generate big sound again for our inner ear, which transforms that sound into electrical signals which our brain then interprets.

All of that waving and bending and oscillating and vibrating and transforming in less than one second, just to have my brain say, “That? That’s the crackling of a fire and that? That’s the furry monster barking at a truck. And that? That’s the whisper of snow.”

Snowflakes, within their fragile, intricate structures, interrupt the sound process. Their crystalline arms trap air which contains sound waves and as millions of snowflakes pile up, the silence grows.

I didn’t think about all of this as I stood in the snow earlier this week but I wondered. I made boo-boo sit and listen with me, which she did, her big ears cocked, hearing the nothingness better than me. She, of course, gave up long before I did. Her brain desperately wanting to hear squirrel movements in the trees or deer legs crunching the snow. A moment passed before I registered her snorting as she smelled the deer scent left behind in their tracks.

I don’t know what it would be like to lose my hearing, where the hum of nature and life is lost to me forever. I’ve heard the silence of snow so many times yet every winter, it is again still and soft and remarkable, as if I am hearing it for the first time. If my hearing were to go, I would miss that pause, that moment where our atmosphere’s release is so loud it stops me and has me, without force, be present and listen to the silence.