Love Letter in the Snow: An Act of Faith

Safe in the snow-globe world, the plot thickens.

Vineyard snow does not turn to gray slush as it melts. It seeps into the emerald moss. It shuffles absent-mindedly off pine boughs too old and heavy to care much about holding on. It leaves the hay fields sprinkled with fairy dust as it recedes, traces the divots of horse hooves on our sandy road.

At least that is what I am thinking as we walk back from Short Cove the day after the gentle storm. The not-so-distant ocean is roaring at our backs; the cows are lying down, spooked by the barometer. The trail signs all have lingering chapeaus of snow neatly balanced atop them.

I hate to say goodbye to the snow-globe world, the one where we are sealed in a quiet wonderland where expectations and schedules don’t exist. The one where we bundle up and venture out into a swirl of big fat flakes because we are compelled by the beauty.

As if on cue, the skies darken again and round two arrives.

We have been talking about faith again on this walk. I am full of excitement to report that I have learned that the limbic area of the brain – the most ancient part, the place where emotions live, decisions are made, and “gut” feelings arise from – has no capacity for language. This – this! This is why I can’t explain my faith to my husband. There are no words for it.

He is much better able to articulate his view of the universe. It’s not faith exactly – what he describes – but it is what he believes. But my faith is entirely spiritual – from the Latin spiritus, meaning “breath.” I am breathing it; it’s a vibrant life-giving force in my life, one honed by what I consider to be the life-saving miracle of sobriety.

I never felt that spirit when I was drinking; I didn’t have the key or the password or even a clue. It took landing on Martha’s Vineyard, a place I barely knew but was drawn to only a year sober, and a plethora of long solitary walks through Menemsha Hills, down to Long Point, across Cedar Tree Neck, and up to Waskosim’s Rock to face the fear that blocked me – almost, in a way, to make friends with it.

Gradually I began to realize that I had a deep, innate strength within me that was connected to a greater power. And that for some reason I could access that strength most easily out in nature, whether I was perched on a glacial erratic deep in the woods, walking the edges of a farm field ringed by low stone walls, or crouching on the shore sifting through rocks and shells, watching the waves slide in and rush out. Some would call these thin spots, where the spirit is close.

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Back home, during a pause in the flurries, we head down to our snow-covered field, tape measure, stakes, and orange flag tape in hand. We are going to plot where the hoop house might go, with 50-foot setbacks from the road and the neighbors. We are going to mark where the fenced market garden might be. We’ll consider where the compost should go. Pinning all these ideas to a blank snowy slate is exhilarating.

In the last fortnight, my hypothetical mini-farm has taken a sudden leap towards reality after our hunt for a hoop house led to the realization that anything big enough to be useful will have to go down in the field, not up by the garage. And anything big enough to be useful is a financial investment and a commitment from me to a future flower and veggie business.

Supporting this is purely an act of faith by my husband. A different kind of faith. (See definition two: complete trust or confidence in someone or something). He feels so strongly about me being happy (the kind of happy I am when I am working outside) that he is willing to suspend his skepticism and help me build this dream. He believes. Though I’m sure the limbic system of the brain will not allow him to confirm or deny this. 

Faith, it seems, transpires not just in those thin spots where the spirit is close, but in acts of love as well.

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“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”

— Winnie the Pooh