Day 49: The Snow Faeries came calling last night, and with them they brought one of the modern era's most precious commodities: silence. I had almost forgotten what it doesn't sound like, that absence of traffic grumbling on the road, but over the last four hours, no more than four cars have dared the snow; no log trucks, no jeepers, no early-shift commuters and more telling, no plow. The Faeries must have gifted Flatland as well, calling those enormous scraping, growling machines to the lowlands with a sense of greater urgency than that of our small mountain community. Silence! It brings a deep calmness to my spirit, creates space between the snarl of thoughts and cares winding through my head. It has been too long since I heard nothing, far too long, and odd though it may seem, nothing can be as critically important to existence as any or all of the somethings in the world.
