Snow has buried much of Washington, D.C. over the last few days. We received more than two feet of snow and we may get sixteen more inches in the next two days. American University, where I teach, and all the schools, have cancelled classes. Even the federal government has closed its offices. We lost power at my house on Friday night and it didn’t come back until late Monday afternoon. So, nights were darker than usual. Streetlights were out, stoplights were out, we resorted to candles and tea lights. A kind of dark beauty settled in.

This dark beauty also brought a surprising quiet. I guess we’re used to a constant beat of background noise. Refrigerators hum, neighbors’ televisions, radios, all create sounds we rarely even notice. But lose electricity for a few days and I was confronted by a rare kind of silence.

It felt good, actually. Once the initial restlessness faded, it was refreshing to do different things, to hear different sounds. We walked, read, wrote, sat in silence in rooms together. It felt human somehow. It felt quiet, both inside and out.

We took a dear friend home from the hospital. We shoveled more snow than my arms can recall. But at the end of the day, we sat in quiet, amid the fragile light of candles.

Every now and then, nature humbles us. I am reminded that we merely live here. We stand and sit and sleep in this space for a short while. It rains, snows, shakes, and shines, but in the end, we only live here. We didn’t make the place. We don’t manipulate the clouds, try as we might.

It’s good, really, to feel this dark beauty. To sit in its silence, to lie in bed at night and hear nothing but love’s breath.

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