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Feb. 7th, 2007 10:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_elyanThis cold evening, awaiting snow which the BBC news site assures me is on its way, I find myself thinking of this passage of prose, one of many by Garrison Keillor which I deeply and profoundly love:
It has been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon. It snowed eight inches on Tuesday and if you'd been there and come for a walk with us you'd know why people in my town love stories so much. There was a fine, dim light in the air: the town was full of moonlight, the old streetlamps glowed, the houses were lit, light shone up from the snow, the snow on the trees - it was so absolutely wonderfully shining beautiful, it made you feel that anything could happen now, just as I felt when my uncle Lew sat on the couch and cleared his throat and said in his quavery voice "Well, I believe this was back in 1906, when I was in high school..."
Anything could happen. George Washington could ride down this snowy street followed by a thousand ragged troops on their way to the battle of Trenton. Angels could descend, saying "Fear not", and scaring the wits out of us. Noah could ride along on an elephant, leading another elephant, and all the other animals strung out behind. Maybe it wasn't a flood God sent, maybe it was winter and they were snowbound, and it wasn't an ark, it was a barn. Forty days and forty nights would be a short winter, but... In Uncle Lew's story, a house burned down on a cold winter night and the little children inside ran barefoot into the snow of 1906 - some were pitched out the bedroom window by their father - and all were safe. But although I heard the story dozens of times, whenever he told it again I was never sure they'd all get out. And since these children grew up to be my ancestors, I had an interest in their survival.
Just so, walking in the mysterious light of a warm snowy night in Lake Wobegon, it's not quite certain what year this is, but it is certain that in this world we think we know so well, and in our life that we're always talking about, there is a great mystery and powerful music playing that we don't hear, and stories full of magic, so many stories that life isn't long enough to tell them all"
Just so.
It has been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon. It snowed eight inches on Tuesday and if you'd been there and come for a walk with us you'd know why people in my town love stories so much. There was a fine, dim light in the air: the town was full of moonlight, the old streetlamps glowed, the houses were lit, light shone up from the snow, the snow on the trees - it was so absolutely wonderfully shining beautiful, it made you feel that anything could happen now, just as I felt when my uncle Lew sat on the couch and cleared his throat and said in his quavery voice "Well, I believe this was back in 1906, when I was in high school..."
Anything could happen. George Washington could ride down this snowy street followed by a thousand ragged troops on their way to the battle of Trenton. Angels could descend, saying "Fear not", and scaring the wits out of us. Noah could ride along on an elephant, leading another elephant, and all the other animals strung out behind. Maybe it wasn't a flood God sent, maybe it was winter and they were snowbound, and it wasn't an ark, it was a barn. Forty days and forty nights would be a short winter, but... In Uncle Lew's story, a house burned down on a cold winter night and the little children inside ran barefoot into the snow of 1906 - some were pitched out the bedroom window by their father - and all were safe. But although I heard the story dozens of times, whenever he told it again I was never sure they'd all get out. And since these children grew up to be my ancestors, I had an interest in their survival.
Just so, walking in the mysterious light of a warm snowy night in Lake Wobegon, it's not quite certain what year this is, but it is certain that in this world we think we know so well, and in our life that we're always talking about, there is a great mystery and powerful music playing that we don't hear, and stories full of magic, so many stories that life isn't long enough to tell them all"
Just so.
