Holland Gray

Gray season is upon us…

Not dramatic, not heavy, just gray. Holland has a particular kind of gray that feels like someone dimmed the world a couple of clicks lower than it needs to be. The lake is close enough that you can almost feel it in the air, but not close enough to see it from my porch. You just get the mood.

I had settled into my chair like I do most days when I can steal a little time. Same spot. Same view of the backyard. Same small collection of things within reach on the little table next to me… a cup of coffee going lukewarm, a book I was pretending I was about to read, my phone flipped face down so I could claim I was being present, even if I wasn’t sure what that meant today. The to do list in my head was loud. Work calls I should schedule. Emails I should send. Texts I owed people. Practice plans to keep refining for Western. Groceries. Laundry. Stuff for the house that I keep telling myself I’ll get around to. The kind of mental clutter that piles up so much you start bumping into it from the inside. I leaned back, pulled the blanket up over my legs, and just listened for a minute. WFMT playing in the background, cars passing. A door somewhere closing. A dog two houses down barking at absolutely nothing. Heat kicking on inside the house. The ordinary sounds of every day.

I told myself I’d just close my eyes for a minute. I love self talk.

You know how it goes from “I’m just resting my eyes” to full sleep without any kind of warning… that was me. One second I was staring at a little stain on the porch railing wondering if I should clean it, the next second my brain had slipped into that floaty space where time gets weird.

It wasn’t a deep sleep. More like drifting.

I remember little flashes of thought. Sara and I walking through Spain at night, streets lit up, everything feeling new and old at the same time. George on a lacrosse field somewhere, swinging his stick, laughing in that way he does when he’s trying not to look too excited. A memory of Grand Haven, sitting on a different porch, watching summer light slip into evening. And then Mary. Not any particular moment, just her presence. That feeling of her inside a room before you even see her. My mind will pull her into any quiet it can find. I don’t fight it. I just let her be there.

Something changed.

At first, I didn’t know if it was the temperature or the sound or the feeling in the air, but my body registered it before my brain did. I woke up like you do on a plane when the wheels hit the ground, just a little jolt and a quick intake of breath.

The world was quiet in a different way.

I blinked a few times, pulled myself back into the present, and realized what I was hearing was the absence of sound. The street was silent. No cars. No voices. No dog. Just this soft, muted hush. I turned my head and saw the first flakes.

They were big and lazy, drifting straight down in that slow motion way that makes it look like gravity has taken the afternoon off. The kind of snow you don’t expect on a day like this, when the morning was just cold, and damp and the weather app had said something vague about “possible flurries later this week.” The air had shifted while I slept and now it was snowing. Not a polite, here’s-a-couple-flakes kind of snow. Within minutes it started to thicken. The gray sky that had been just a backdrop a short time ago had turned into a machine, quietly producing winter.

I tucked the blanket a little tighter around my legs, picked up the coffee, realized it was cold, and set it back down. Some part of me knew I should get up, maybe check the heat, maybe look at my phone to see what the forecast missed. But I didn’t. I just sat there and watched the weather decide to change my afternoon. I just sat there and watched the weather decide to change my afternoon. Something about it held me in place. Maybe it was the quiet. Maybe it was the way the snow started covering the small details of the yard, softening everything that usually looks ordinary or a little tired. Maybe it was the fact that I had been drifting in and out of memories and the world had decided to drift with me. The snow gathered on the railing. It moved slow enough that you could follow individual flakes from sky to the ground. Every now and then the wind would gust and give a little push, and the flakes would swirl just enough to remind me I wasn’t dreaming. I felt myself ease into the moment, almost like the change in the weather had changed me too. The to do list went quiet. The pressure in my chest let go a little. The world felt softer than it had any right to be on a day that started as nothing more than gray.

I thought about how strange it is to feel grateful in the middle of something so simple. Waking up to unexpected snow. Sitting in a chair that has become its own kind of refuge. Being in Holland long enough now that the street feels familiar. Even knowing the lake is out there somewhere, close enough to shape the weather but far enough that I have to imagine it. I thought about Mary again, the way snow used to make her smile in that half amused, half annoyed way. She never loved the cold, but she loved the beauty of it. And I felt her there with me for a second, just enough to make the moment feel fuller, warmer, even as the air got colder. I let myself sit with all of it. The memories. The quiet. The unexpected shift in the day. The simple truth that I am still here, still finding my way, still being given these small reminders that life keeps moving and offering me pieces of wonder even in the middle of the ordinary. Eventually the cold started to work through the blanket and into my legs. I didn’t want to move just yet. There was something grounding about letting the snow fall around me without rushing to do the next thing. I took one slower look at the yard turning white. The porch steps disappearing beneath a growing layer. The street completely still. The sky continuing its quiet work.

And I felt lucky. Not in a loud way. Not in the kind of way you try to capture. Just quietly lucky to be in this chapter of my life, in this place, on this porch, watching a simple gray afternoon turn into something that felt almost like a gift.

When I finally stood up, I stretched my back, called the dog who was also in slumber on the couch. As she picked up her head to see who was calling the warmth of the house met me right away, but part of me stayed out there for a moment longer, still watching the snow fall in my mind. Frida tucked back into the couch in a very disinterested way. Sometimes the world shifts without warning and hands you a moment you didn’t know you needed. Today that moment was a snowfall on a gray afternoon in Holland.

And I’m grateful I didn’t miss it.