Snow surprises
A snow blizzard recently paralyzed Greece and left for days several neighbourhoods – otherwise considered immune to the impact of such phenomena – covered in what looked from afar like delicious ice frosting but, in reality, was nothing less than a menace we did not know how to face. The long electricity cuts filled my home with an eerie silence, void of the fridge’s familiar white noise, the pulsing of the heating pipes, the murmur of the TV, or the occasional disruption of my mobile, which, to preserve its battery for emergencies, I turned off and tucked under the bed covers to keep warm. The snow-imposed lockdown left us dumbfounded, in a state of bewilderment that echoed the first months of the pandemic two years ago and reminded us, all too fast, how easily life can humble us and how fragile our confidence can be in the face of the unknown.
As I lay in my bed, braving the cold, the surrounding darkness waned only by the flame of a candle, I remembered another snow experience in Bhutan. We had been hiking on the Druk Path for six days when we reached our last camping spot, just above Thimphu (the capital city). It was April, and the weather had been wobbling between Winter and Spring, unable to make a clear decision. Some parts of the trail were still sprinkled with snow, and the nights were icy cold, while, on the other hand, the rhododendrons were blooming, leaving marks of bright red kisses on the woodland. Luckily, though, we did not have any unpleasant surprises, and the notoriously erratic elements of the mountains had been gentle with us; so, once we saw the city from above, perched within the protective embrace of the valley, we were confident that we were up for the most comfortable night of our hike. But, alas, it was not meant to be.
I woke up in the wee hours at the sound of intense thumps – a brutally unfamiliar sound on a path that had been blessed with peace and silence. To my surprise, it was my friend with whom I was sharing a tent and who was sitting up, still in her sleeping bag, furiously battering the yellow plastic canvas that surrounded us. An unexpected snowfall had covered the tents in ice, and we had to shake it off quickly, or we would soon suffocate, unable to breathe in our sleep. On top of that, our night toilet visits – unavoidable, given the amount of water consumed to help with the high altitude – became uncomfortably hazardous, and the infrastructure of the camp that boasted sturdy, built-in toilets as opposed to a hole in the ground protected by a flimsy tent became an inconvenience since the path was slippery, long, and dangerous, almost invisible amidst the snow and fog. In minutes, the camp that was meant to be the most luxurious on the trail – and, maybe, the dullest one – turned into a night to remember with a final touch of adventure.
Life always goes out of its way to gift us with surprises, tossing aside our vain attempts to be in control. We keep improving throughout the years, yet, like in the recent snow blizzard, we always fall short, being nudged to grow – sometimes gently, other times, mercilessly – by the course of events. The ebbs and tides of our expansion are inevitable, but in the silence that settles in between the waves, when even white noise recedes to nothing, we can rise to the occasion and accept the process. The peace that ultimately emerges makes the journey smoother and more enjoyable.
Photo credits: © Konstantina Sakellariou
