A take on Vivaldi: 2/4 Seasons
/The year progresses. Munich has already rolled into the second month and after a series of colds, infections and the ongoing problem of the foot I have decided that enough is enough, and I will no longer succumb to the mid-winter blues. Armed with a new pair of hiking boots, which function more like a plaster cast, I have begun to venture back out into Bavaria. It has come as somewhat of a shock. Whilst a month of being cooped up in the flat, parodying the Lady of Shallot has caused me to put on a few pounds, Munich has been undergoing its own metamorphosis.
The skies had been threatening snow for a while and when it finally came, it was a relief. Living under the heavy grey clouds had felt like being under the oppressive belly of an extraterrestrial spaceship, they had hung that low. Finally with the white flakes falling as thick as goose down, the claustrophobia had been justified. Munich was transformed. One day grey, both in stone and sky, the next day it was white with that peculiar reflective brightness of thick snow. Objects were blanketed, even the most severe perpendicular edifice was softened by a two inch thick duvet of white and more freeform structures, trees or statuary, were shrouded in snow if not subsumed completely.
And it was not just the city that had been transformed. Starting the 2019 series of weekend walks, Philippe and I boarded a train to take us out of Munich and as the scuzzy outskirts of the inner city gave way to suburbia and then to the countryside proper, the depth of snow increased. Within twenty minutes we were zipping past pristine white fields, the contours only occasionally disturbed by animal tracks. Semi-seriously we tried to play ranger and match the tracks to the animal but this game stopped rather quickly when we found our knowledge of Bavarian wildlife was limited to rabbit, squirrel and deer.
These serene conditions were present for the first few walks but as January went on, top ups of snow became less frequent and the cover of white rotted away. More and more of the earth appeared through the discolouring slush. Most disconcerting were the knobbly tree stumps, which poked through the white and brown with the startling appearance of uncovered remains. With so many like-minded people trying to defy the conditions and continue their outdoor activities, the walking trails had becoming slippery with footfall. The snow had been churned away into a watery mud but below that lay something altogether more treacherous.
I slipped, my arms jerking out in a reflex contortion whilst my injured foot protested acutely.
“What the fu-?!” I yelped.
“It’s ice,” Philippe said, stating the obvious with the confidence of the outdoorsy scientist that he is.
But it wasn’t just ice. It was strata of ice, multitude layers formed as each mush froze during the sub-zero temperatures. Echoing the Arctic ice pack here lay different vintages of ice, multiple sheets all underneath my unstable feet. It made for very slow and at times painful walking.
But that meant a more protracted and submersive experience. Yes, Google Maps severely overestimated my walking speed and half my cognitive processing was focused on the next metre of earth in front of me, but I found myself liking the almost meditative concentration of it. I had greater time to take in my surroundings and enjoy the quiet of stopping by woods on a snowy evening. Plus, it gave me even more excuse to hold Philippe’s hand.
As we have returned to Munich after the first few excursions I have noticed that the transition between snow, slush and naked tarmac occurs after shorter and shorter distances. I wonder whether that is to do with the availability of snow-clearing mechanisms or the heated thoroughfare of the city. Mucky piles of snowy sludge still remain in a few places in the centre and sometimes the remnants of a snowman catches me out, a decomposing reminder of when there were more of his kind on the streets than mine. It is startling to remember how it looked a mere fortnight earlier.
A few days ago, however, something strange happened. I woke up, got dressed and started my journey to work as usual, walking to the underground network in a darkness not dissimilar to those of the tube tunnels I was about to travel in. But as I emerged from the U-Bahn station at the end of my journey instead of the usual pre-dawn darkness, the sky was light blue and the clouds were blush pink. Sunrise. At such a time.
There is a lot to be said for snow, but my word, I cannot wait until spring.
