From The Innkeepers

Let it Snow
On the Power of a Pause

This first Thanksgiving at the Inn did not go as planned. Who could have predicted when I was photographing a surprise dandelion shining up from the grass in mid-November that less than two weeks later that same trail would be buried under nine inches of snow? I am all for dreaming of a white Christmas.  But a white Thanksgiving is an entirely different matter.  

When the forecast confirmed it would snow most of Thanksgiving Eve and all of Thanksgiving Day, our aunts, who had been planning to drive up from Grand Rapids, called to let us know that they were not willing to drive over the river and through the woods in the white and drifted snow. I didn’t blame them at all. In fact, staying home on Thanksgiving has always been one of my main reasons for giving thanks, so even though we would miss seeing them, I was glad that they didn’t have to travel on the holiday.

Late Wednesday morning, just as the storm was just beginning, our daughter arrived from college.  Thankfully she’d had a mostly uneventful drive except for a fishtailing incident on a highway ramp. Then the snow and the wind picked up.  Living farther north now and less than eighty miles from Lake Michigan, I knew logically that winters would be different in Big Rapids than in Ann Arbor, but I now know that our new location is full of surprises. The Inn sits in a little valley, surrounded by a sweeping meadow on a hill in the back, a small lake on one side, and a pond on the other. These wide expanses create powerful wind tunnels around the house and barn, shaping huge snow drifts that look like sculptures crafted by the Abominable Snow Man himself.

When we woke up on Thanksgiving morning, only four inches of snow had fallen, yet snow was piled four feet high against the lobby window, and two feet blocked our exit out the front door. In the driveway near the barn, a three-foot-high drift looked like a perfect surfing wave, while parts of the backyard had almost been swept bare, leaving the grass poking through a fine layer of snow.

With a brief break in the snow the next day, we dug ourselves out and took advantage of the clear weather to deliver Thanksgiving leftovers to our aunts in Grand Rapids and earn our Parents of the Year award by agreeing to take our daughter Black Friday shopping at Woodland Mall. But by Saturday morning, the snow was falling again, and we ended up with about nine inches when all was said and done. 

So here we are on December first with a headstart on winter, and I’m trying not to be grumpy about the fact that everything is now harder. I need to wear knee-high boots to get the mail. I can’t hike out to the woods without ten minutes of preparation. A quick run into town is no longer possible. With snow like this, every impulse to do anything beyond the front door is followed by a pause. Yet when I look out the window at the pines, their boughs draped in dollops of creamy snow, I realize there is no point in being mad about it.  Maybe this is how the song “Let it Snow” came about. Perhaps the songwriters realized that when it comes to snow, surrendering to the pause is the best response.  It’s the same sort of “chin up” attitude as the Beatles’ “Let it Be,” which I’ve always thought is one of humanity’s best pep talks. There’s a sense of agency in realizing that the only power you have is to let go of your resistance and “let it be.” There is comfort in letting it be because it seems like we are allowing it, when in fact we will find ourselves in times of trouble whether we allow it or not. It gives us a positive action to take, something to do about it, even if the only thing to do is to soften into what is.

When a storm comes, whether it be nine inches of snow before December even starts or a torrent of emotions caused by some upheaval in our lives, the fact remains that it is there. We can lament it, complain about it, or spring into action to try to stop it, but none of these responses will make it go away. The only response that creates change is shifting the way we look at it. When the night is cloudy but I can still recognize the light that shines on me, I’ve won.  It makes me think of Viktor Frankl’s famous quote: “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”  

Assuming we choose wisely, maybe we can be present in the moment as we lace up our boots, relax our shoulders against the urge to scrunch them up to our ears as we step out into the cold, and simply let it snow.

With gratitude,
Erin, Aaron, and Ryan
Keepers of the Rustic Gate