Between the white earth and the black night

I made this still-art-with-music the other day. The photo is of the adirondack chairs and wooden barrels on my front porch the last week in March. It snowed fiercely that day, but the sun came up to melt it all on the next.

Those chairs and barrels sat on my parents' front porch for more than twenty years. They didn't fit with the southwestern aesthetic they're cultivating out there in the southwest, where they've retired, so we inherited them. The song playing in the background is "Like the Snow," by Kristin Andreassen. The lyrics seem to fit, somehow, with my feelings about my parents' leaving, and how I imagine they feel too.

Like the Snow
by Kristin Andreassen / Yellowcar Music, ASCAP

It was a warm love in a northern town.
It was the right time for settling down.
It was a storm brought me to your door.
I didn’t ask for your love, but I couldn’t ask for more.

I saw the sun come out yesterday.
I felt our love melting away.
Believe me when I say I’m gonna miss your face.
Walking away I wonder, do you know this place?

Between the white earth and the black night,
When a love’s going wrong but it’s still all right.
If only half of me wants to let go,
Can I go and come back like the snow?

They were good reasons I became your bride.
It’s nothing you did wrong, that’s not why I cried.
The pressure here, it’s in my own heart.
It’s beating me up, it’ll push us apart.

Because I’m not the same girl as when we met.
I know I’ll change again, and yet...
What if I come to miss your love,
All through the rainy southern winters, I’ll be dreaming of

Chorus

Does only half of you want me to go?
Can I turn and grow back like the green leaves turn yellow?
Can’t I lift and fall back like the snow.