Today dawned clear and blue, and stayed that way, only the wispiest of white clouds tracing a path across an indigo sky. But even amid the warmth and light, the wind whispered of what’s to come, hints of cold riding the death rattle of the leaves on the quaking aspens.
The forecast now predicts that the rain will begin Tuesday night instead of Wednesday, which, if true, virtually guarantees snow — whether “instead of” or “in addition to” will be immaterial by morning. The trees will be rimed in either frost or ice, unless the real snow has already come to enfold them in its embrace.
Even on these last few bright and sunny mornings, there is still frost in the blue.
It’s one of the truths of this place: that when the water comes, it assumes what form it will. It is also a truth that the water comes when it will, and no amount of local infighting and political thievery will summon it before or outside its own good time. This winter will be, perhaps, a turning point, one that tells us what our small world here will look like going forward.
If it is to be drought, continued, frost will become more valuable than diamonds.
On the day that Wings captured this image, at the outset of this calendar year, the ice crystals were diamonds indeed: an early snow after too many winters without, at least in any real volume. They are the smallest of snowflakes, these crystals, as complex and refractive as any prism, channeling the light against a cobalt sky for a moment, perhaps a minute, before they begin their process of transforming back to water.
It’s neither evolution nor devolution, merely change, altered states that, in the end, produce like results. Oh, the results take a bit longer to show themselves when the water comes as snow or ice, and the unaware never see them at all. But here, we can tell you the difference between a good winter and bad one by the quality of the next summer.
In a place where the runoff from melting snowpack accounts for nearly all of the running surface water in spring, a hard winter is a good winter, heavy snows are welcome, and the greatest of jewels are formed by frost in the blue.
They say this will be a week when the water comes in its precipitate form. Perhaps we shall see all three in their early dress — a hard winter, heavy snows, and frost in the blue. What is beyond question is that we shall be grateful for it, however it chooses to come.
~ Aji
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