It’s that time of year in the northeast when all the color drains from the land and we’re left with a muted landscape of gray.  The sky is gray, the trees are gray, the smoke rising from the chimneys is gray, and so many people’s moods are gray.  But what if we just sat and observed the grayness of it all?  Would it alter our perception of a stark cold day? Would our spirits be lifted and our bodies bolstered against the cold?   I, for one, believe we can appreciate all the shades of gray.

Last Thursday I sat at the bus stop waiting for the elementary school bus to arrive.  It was an early dismissal because of the impending snowstorm.  I and the big one were already home so I decided to embrace the day and walk up the road to wait at the stop.  It was the kind of bone-chilling cold that hints of snow.  The kind that makes the air smell different. I was the only parent out.  The others were either nestled in their homes watching from a window or in running cars parked at the ends of driveways.  I sat on the bench my friend’s husband kindly put at the end of their driveway and waited and watched.  I felt grateful for my down coat and Aunt Gerri’s homemade scarf.  I wasn’t exactly toasty but I wasn’t freezing either.  As I sat I noticed how muted the world around me was.  It was so quiet and calm.  Eerily so.  Then I started to notice the beauty of the gray.

From my perch, I could observe the neighbor’s yard, my upper pasture, and the road.  Directly in front of me was a locust tree.  Its branches were bare except for the last remaining seed pods, shriveled and brown, tentatively clinging before making the long descent to the muddy cold ground.  Looking up at its dark gray branches I noticed the pods moving in the breeze and heard the accompanying sound - the dry rustle of nature’s tiny maracas. The wind had picked up and I pulled my scarf up over my nose.  Then my attention turned to a sound to my right.  I looked at the mottled gray stone wall trying to pinpoint the source.  There, sitting atop the wall was a gray squirrel.  He was chattering.  Either he was calling a friend or found my presence to be disturbing but he carried on with his business as if I didn’t matter. The silence was filled with the sounds of whooshing, rustling, and chattering and I was no longer alone at the stop; I was accompanied by my thoughts.

Across the road in my top pasture stand many unhealthy trees.  Most of them are either ash or crabapple.  Their bark is gray and covered in lichen.  The lichen itself is a pale gray-green but it looks so bright against the darker shade of the trees.  I can’t say I paid much notice to this during the warmer months but now that the trees are bare the lichen stands out.  As I was contemplating the beauty of this composite organism, the sweet trill of a Junco joined the music that nature was already playing.  I walked over to the field to see if I could catch a glimpse of this tiny gray and white bird.  I was so fortunate to see several of them gathered in the brambles of a multiflora rose bush.  I thought of a line from a poem I had written many years ago, “Winter arrives on Junco wing gray and white with a hint of pink”.  It may not have officially started, but these hardy little creatures are regulars at winter feeders.  And on this day the weather felt a lot like winter. 

As nature’s quartet carried on –whoosh, rustle, chatter, and trill - the eerily quiet wait turned into a private concert.  I returned to the bench and gazed up at the sky with its ever-darkening clouds hoping the snow would wait until all the children were home safe.  I watched the changing colors and felt the increasing wind.  This gray day was going to result in a very white tomorrow.  I wondered if this was going to be the last storm of the year or the first of the season.  As if to rouse me from my reverie, a chickadee, with its black cap and buff and gray feathers flew by singing its solo of “chick a-dee-dee-dee”.  I was able to look up long enough to watch it leave. 

Where was the bus?  I stared down the length of the steely gray tar and chip road noticing that the cloud color was starting to match it.  The dismissal was at 1 PM.  I walked up around 1:20 but this wait was feeling far more than the usual ten minutes.  I don’t know if it was my anxiety about the storm but I started noticing the bustling around me.  Squirrels were chattering and scrambling through the dried leaves and up trees.  The Junco gathering seemed to multiply.  A Nuthatch with its distinctive blue-gray color and nasal sound brought me back to better thoughts as I watched it move vertically on an ash tree.   I’m sure this was some last attempt at foraging before hunkering down for hours of wind and snow. Nature was hinting to me that it was time to get indoors.  My motherly instincts were telling me to walk over to a neighbor to find out if they knew what was keeping the bus. 

Then, as if I willed it, I saw the red flashing lights of the bus down the road.  Phew….a few more stops and my little one would be disembarking with her friends.  I stood and walked to the roadside and was soon joined by my friend’s mom, Kathy/Grammy, who watches her grandchildren every day.   I could tell her mood was gray.  She just wasn’t her usual cheery self because she was concerned about her own daughter’s commute home.  With the three friends off the bus and happily chatting, we waved farewell to the driver and the remaining students.  There is something about children and the excitement of a snow day that is refreshing.  They don’t worry about commutes or groceries or snow plowing.  They just anticipate playing in the snow and drinking hot cocoa.  We said our goodbyes and headed down the road to home, hand in hand, discussing the day’s events.  When we reached the end of our driveway I was comforted by the billows of pale gray smoke rising from my chimney.  In just 200 feet we would be warm and snug (in our gray house) ready to face this November snowstorm. 

Image by Boe Burke

If you are interested in learning more about the birds mentioned in this post I recommend checking out the Cornell University site www.allaboutbirds.org