The wind that comes before snow is unlike any other.
Even now, as I sit in my little house by Lake Siljan, the memory of that wind returns to me as vividly as if I felt it upon my cheek. It was a breath from the far north — cold, sharp, carrying with it the clean, fierce promise of winter. I remember the way it set the bare branches of the birches trembling, the way it swept across the frozen fields beyond our home, rattling the shutters and making the door creak upon its hinges.
I was seven that year — old enough to understand that snow was coming, young enough that each snowfall seemed a miracle.
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The day before the storm, the world was hushed, as if all of nature had paused, waiting for the first flakes to fall. The sky hung low and gray, heavy with clouds that seemed to press down upon the earth, as if they, too, longed to touch the sleeping fields. The last of autumn's leaves lay sodden upon the ground, brown and gold, the color faded from them as if the season's breath had been stolen away.
I stood at the edge of the birch forest, my boots sinking into the damp earth, my breath a pale mist in the chill air. The forest was still, the only sound the soft creak of tree trunks swaying slightly in the wind. The moss beneath the trees had turned dark with moisture, and the ferns lay flattened, as if bowing before winter's advance.
The air smelled of frost — sharp, clean, and faintly metallic, like iron left out in the cold.
I remember the first flake — a single, perfect star drifting down from the sky, spinning slowly as it fell. It landed upon the sleeve of my coat, melting almost at once, leaving behind a tiny bead of water that caught the pale light.
And then another. And another.
Soon, the air was filled with them — silent, countless, falling like a blessing upon the land.
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I ran then, through the birch trees, laughing, the snowflakes catching in my hair, upon my lashes, upon the tip of my nose. The ground softened beneath my feet as the snow began to gather, the brown of the earth vanishing beneath a veil of white. The forest, moments before so dark and somber, began to brighten as the snow clothed every branch, every twig, every stone.
I remember the sound — or rather, the absence of sound. The snow muffled everything: the creak of the trees, the rustle of the last dry leaves, even the wind's voice. The world was wrapped in silence, a silence so deep it seemed sacred.
I paused at a clearing deep in the woods. The birches stood tall around me, their white trunks blending with the falling snow, so that they seemed not trees at all, but pillars of cloud come down to earth.
I lifted my face to the sky, letting the flakes kiss my skin, feeling their cold softness melt into warmth. In that moment, I felt a peace I have rarely known since — a peace that comes only when the world is new-made and the soul is at rest within it.
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I write these things now, and outside my window, the birches of Lake Siljan stand as they did then, their leaves gone, their limbs bare against the winter sky. The lake is already rimmed with ice, and the clouds hang low, heavy with snow yet to fall.
The room around me is warm — the fire crackles softly in the hearth, the scent of pine logs mingling with the ink on my desk. But my mind walks again those snowy paths, and I feel the cold air upon my face, hear the silence of the snow, see the world as I saw it then: fresh, unspoiled, waiting to be discovered.
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I remember, too, how that first snow changed the world of our village.
The morning after the storm, I awoke to a brightness that filled our little house, light reflected from the endless white beyond the window. The roofs of the cottages wore thick hats of snow, and smoke rose straight into the still air from every chimney. The river lay frozen, a silver ribbon winding between the trees.
The village children — myself among them — tumbled into the street, our cheeks flushed with cold and excitement, our breath clouding the air as we shouted and laughed. We built snowmen with pebble eyes and stick arms, shaped forts for our imaginary battles, carved paths through the drifts with our boots.
The snow made us kings of our world — for in that white silence, everything seemed possible, every dream as pure and shining as the land itself.
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There was one place I loved best after the snow fell: a hollow beneath an ancient birch, where the roots rose from the ground like the ribs of some great beast. The snow would gather there, but the tree's branches sheltered the hollow so that beneath it lay a secret world — a place of quiet and wonder, where I would sit and listen to the sound of the snow falling upon the forest's roof.
Sometimes, a deer would pass, its hooves leaving delicate tracks across the clearing. Sometimes, a fox would slip between the trees, its red coat a flash of color in the white world. And sometimes, there was nothing but the snow and the wind and the beating of my own heart.
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I write these memories, and I see again the forest of my childhood, cloaked in its first winter's robe. I see the way the snow clung to every branch, the way it softened the world's edges, the way it turned the familiar into something strange and new.
And I remember how, as a boy, I felt that the snow was not a thing to be endured, but a gift — a gift that made the world beautiful, that made me see with new eyes, that made my heart quiet and full.
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Now, as I look upon the lake, I know that first snow taught me a lesson I have carried all my life:
That beauty does not shout; it whispers.
That wonder does not come in thunder, but in the fall of a single silent flake.
And so I write, hoping that my
words may fall as softly upon the soul as snow upon the sleeping earth.