Near-whiteout conditions rolled into town just as I was ready for them. The scholars were safely behind office doors and the students nursing hangovers under the covers. A snowstorm is at once a violent and a gentle thing. Great muffling walls of white dropped all at once from the heavens. By the time I had finished making this image, clumps of snow were rolling off my shoulders.
Somewhere, still echoing in the past if not only in my memory, are footfalls of a younger self, trudging to work or to class or to the lab through these snows. I remember the gratitude at regaining a footpath heated by the steam pipes, sure footing meant that a hot cup of coffee and a dry sofa would come quickly.
No such respite for the gargoyles and spires of campus, just the slow, the solemn peace of a deep winter, and the fresh, white blanket.
