Pink Blizzards - The Quintessential Experience -Mierlo, Brabant

It was in May of 1993 that a rare set of climatic conditions resulted in the deposition of 68 inches of snow on Mount Pisgah in North Carolina, setting a North American snowfall record. What was astounding about this snowfall, aside from its amount, location, and the season of its fall was the blue color it possessed, exactly the same hue as seen in the icebergs calving from the faces of the glacial flows which empty into the inside passage of Alaska. The beauty and wonder was without comparison.

Life can be an odious nightmare for so many of us here on this smallish sapphire planet we call home. For far too many people life is about survival, not about beauty, yet unexpectedly, as Yancey so aptly said, pleasure can wash up on the shores of our lives as grand remnants from Paradise. Blue snow in May was paradise that had washed up on our shores. Adults forgot their cares and romped as children in its crystalline magic. My response was to take friends and a picnic lunch to the top of that mountain and serve fruit compote in stemmed glasses and deli ham as a main course.

It is only April, yet today I experienced a blizzard of another hue - a soft fragrant pink one on an eighty-degree day at one foot above sea level. It was in the stunning beauty of the Canadian Rockies of Western Canada eight years ago that I met my good friends Hans and Yne. We met in a time of crisis. Today we experienced magic, eight years and eight thousand miles away from that first encounter, yet again in the midst of life's sometimes severe challenges. Today I learned of the suicide of a dear friend's sister. For a time I felt winded, knowing the blow to my friend would be unbearable. Hans has a strong intuitive sensibility and he suggested a walk.

Under a ceramic blue Dutch sky with china white clouds, the three of us set out for a walk in the miraculous unusually warm climate, which has caused an intense spectral eruption of spring color - vibrant orange lily tulips, crisp white hydrangea, cobalt blue grape hyacinth, and lavender rhododendron. Magic again washed upon my shores. While walking under the sky in a landscape that gave Vermeer and Rubens the inspiration to create their breath taking views of the world, a tuft of gentle spring air loosed a blizzard of pink petals from the cherry trees lining the serene herringbone brick streets of this bucolic village and sent them swirling around my head. The sidewalks and curbstones were filled with these pink fragments of Paradise that had just blown into my life. I have swiftly learned that in the Brabant province of the Nederland, gentle surprises are to be found at nearly every turn. Perhaps the message of the Brabant is to not question why life sometimes has exquisite pain, rather instead to with gratitude wonder why it is that remnants of Paradise wash up on our shores, or swirl around our heads. I have certainly had more than my share of these precious remnants wash up in recent days.

Walking down the brick streets with their pleasing herringbone patterns, we were immersed in exuberant life - families out for leisurely strolls, young lovers riding their bicycles, middle-aged couples enjoying a Heineken at the sidewalk café, and enthusiastic young parents challenging their adolescent sons to push themselves to their limits. It so happened that we came upon the start of a bicycle race in which several dozen Dutch boys pushed themselves through twenty-seven kilometers of a bricked-line labyrinth. It was while watching this quintessential Dutch experience in bicycle heaven that a gentle whiff of new spring air encased me in pink magic, reminding me that Paradise is but a breath away. We happily watched those boys give it their all for thirty-five circuits. As far as I was concerned they were all winners, having been given good health, good bikes, and the opportunity to live in virtual paradise. I was a winner in that I am able to continue a pilgrimage that includes walks along the seashore of life that includes cherry blossom petals swirling around my head and the chance to see happy people out loving life in a place out of one of Rubens' paintings. I only wish that my friend and her sister could have had a cloud of cherry blossoms catch them by happy surprise in time to know that life is a miracle always worth embracing.

I sit here listening to the Brandenburg Concertos #4,5,and 6 as the last aureate sunlight of a luminous day begins its slow fade to indigo. The indigo will give way to the platinum of a full moon. I am in a place that defines home. Yne is in presently working culinary magic in the kitchen. Hans and the tulips are on the terrace soaking up the last of the golden day. The clouds are just beginning to turn the color of the cherry blossoms.

It is a wonder that I have been granted another such day.