Have You Entered the Storehouses of Snow?

I straddled the bow of the canoe, settling it into the shore as my husband grasped the gunwales and balanced his way to the seat at the stern.

He mentioned a small tear in the fiberglass bottom, a result of years of scraping on small beach stones, not a reality that inspired confidence as I pushed the craft out into glacial waters.

I picked up the small oar and joined my husband in paddling.

In moments we were surrounded by wonder. Iceberg after iceberg floated around us in an unending world of blue.

Periwinkle. Royal. Cobalt. Slate.

All wavelengths of the visible light spectrum had been absorbed except blue, which refracted and scattered, interacting with the light and the crystals.* What had begun as a single white snowflake, containing all the colors in the visible spectrum, ended in the compressed glacial ice surrounding us in an exclusive explosion of color.

Denim. Peacock. Cornflower. Navy.

When John Muir first came to the glaciers of Alaska, he didn't bother with technical data about color spectrums. "Shrieking, vitriolic blue," he said. "If you were as cold as the glacier, you'd be blue too."*

We could hear the shrieking as another iceberg broke from the main glacier setting off a rumble like a rifle shot or a kettle drum as it thundered into the water.

"Have you entered the storehouses of the snow?" The Maker once asked (Job 38:33). If asked the question before this day, I would have exclaimed, “Yes! Yes! I have been to the storehouses of the snow. I grew up in Minnesota. I wintered in Canada. I’ve seen 40 below zero. I’ve snowmobiled, camped, sledded, skied, made snow angels, and thrown snowballs. I have seen the storehouses of the snow.”

But I have never experienced this storehouse. A place where beauty is made only after much pressing. A place where 144 inches of snow are needed to make one inch of blue glacial ice.

144 inches!!

For one inch!

A place where air is removed as inch by inch piles high and the weight of it all settles down.

Down.

Down.

And then again, maybe I have been to such a storehouse, but not a place found in the icy blue, but in the pressing of it all.

And maybe you have been also. That place when the circumstances crowd you close, when you feel hemmed in from every side and you wonder where you will find your very breath.

Perhaps you are in such a place now.

Perhaps it is illness.

Or pain.

Or endless needs from little people.

Or big people.

Press. Press. Press.

Down. Down. Down.

Perhaps the storehouses of snow have nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with atmosphere – 144 inches of compression per inch.

Yes, I have known this storehouse. The pushing. The squeezing. The  constricting. When even breathing is difficult.

I have friends and family in the storehouse now.

“The scans show the cancer has spread to my spine.”

“The tumor has grown in her brain.”

“I cannot make him happy.”

“Tomorrow the doctor will disconnect life support.”

"I feel like a failure as a mother."

The storehouses of snow.

On the lake, my husband swung wide around an approaching iceberg rising more than twenty feet above the bow of the canoe. Twenty feet of compression.

34,560 inches of fallen snow.

A small mountain of shrieking vitriolic blue.

But today – on a perfect Alaskan summer day of 72 degrees – the air was not cold. The icebergs were no longer shrieking. They were melting.

Drip by drip, in a continual cadence all around us.

"The snow is melting into music," John Muir wrote in his journal. **

We paddled among the sheet music, skirting the notes of the melting, being careful of the bass notes hidden beneath the surface.

"Icebergs melt faster underwater," our friends had warned. "When the bergs get top-heavy, they flip."

A crescendo off to our left warned us of an impending flipping. We had no time to swing our cameras before the sound was over, sending ripples across the pages. What was upside down was now right-side up in this topsy--turvy landscape. Or was what was once up, down?

We could not decide as our canoe rocked gently.

Then, as I turned back to the gentle giant in front of us, the sun broke through a gap at the top of the berg.

In the rhythm of the melting, light pierced, as 144 inches of snow per inch trickled down, drop after drop, to land in the same water where we paddled our canoe.

I have written before that this is a landscape of falling and here in the icy blue, I couldn't help but wonder and in my wondering, I wanted to whisper, "Is it possible that in the storehouses of snow, that sovereignty and beauty hold hands? Is it possible the storehouses of snow also contain the storehouses of hope?"

"Is it possible that after the pressing ... after the pushing ... after up is down and down is up ... after the settling ... after the squeezing of the very breath under the weight of it all ...

there is melting.

There is light shining through.

There is hope.

Storehouses of hope.

Beautiful hope.

Is it possible, the color of hope is blue?"

******

* Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve by Kim Heacox

** John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir

******

I am looking for some cancer survivors and caregivers who would like to offer feedback for an upcoming series on Life After Cancer. For more info, please email me at lynnehartke@aol.com.

On a personal note, I received word while I was on vacation in Alaska that WordServe Literary Agency is interested in representing me and my nonfiction manuscript, so I am now an author working for this agency.  I couldn't help but think about six years ago, in the midst of cancer treatment, I made the decision to quit waiting for someday and registered for writing classes.

Is it possible, the color of hope is blue?