One Photograph, One Story
The Street When the Snow Begins
A little snow, a streetlight and an ordinary Albany street become something worth stopping to watch from the front porch of House 173.
There's something about the first little bit of snow.
Not the twelve-inch, where-did-I-put-the-shovel, why-do-we-live-here kind of snow.
Just this.
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| For a few minutes, even the street we've looked at for nearly three decades became someplace new. November 17, 2020 |
I must have stepped onto the front porch to look outside, because that's where I'm standing in this photograph. The porch railing is in the foreground, and beyond it is the same street we've looked out on for nearly three decades.
Except for a few minutes, it wasn't quite the same street.
Look at that snow.
There's barely enough to cover anything. The grass is still showing through. The sidewalk has only a dusting. The street is wet and dark beneath it.
But the snow is coming down hard enough to catch the streetlights.
And that's what I remember about nights like this.
You don't really see snow falling until there's a light behind it.
Then suddenly every flake appears.
The apple tree out front has already dropped its leaves and become that wonderful black tangle of trunks and branches that trees save for winter. Somewhere behind them, the streetlight is glowing through the snow.
Across the street, the houses are still there.
The cars are still parked where they were a few hours earlier.
Nothing has really changed.
And yet everything looks different.
That's one of winter's better tricks.
Give it fifteen minutes and a little snow, and the street you've walked up and down a thousand times becomes someplace worth standing on the porch and looking at.
Of course, I know what happens next.
If it keeps snowing, eventually somebody has to shovel.
Around here, that usually means Charles, Larry and I will emerge from our respective houses and begin clearing sidewalks and driveways. The peaceful little scene becomes work.
But we're not there yet.
For the moment, nobody needs to do anything.
The shovel can stay wherever it is.
The snow is just snow.
And House 173 is doing what it has done through almost a century of Albany winters... sitting quietly behind me while another one begins.
Maybe that's why I took the picture.
Not because anything happened.
But because for one little stretch of an otherwise ordinary evening, I happened to notice what was happening while nothing was happening at all.
A streetlight.
Bare branches.
A few parked cars.
Snow falling through the dark.
And me, standing on the porch long enough to watch it.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
- Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Hey, thanks for stopping by - see ya' next time!
