Back in black.

Not really. More like, back in nightgown. Which is gray. But that is not my topic. My topic is snow.

I love it. In the wintertime, I am happiest when there is snow--snow falling, snow on the ground, predicted snow, the promise of snow. When people say, it's a beautiful day when it's winter and there's no snow either present or imminent, I feel profoundly alone in that conversation. Because there should be snow in the wintertime.

As I get older, I get that stronger urge to hole up in the dark months. I feel the darkness, and the darkness tells me to find a warm corner and stay there. I have piles and piles of blankets and sweaters and more blankets and coats and more blankets for this very purpose. I feel my bed is approximately the apotheosis of coziness, and I am drawn to it as well in the wintertime. But there is no sleep as blessed as that which takes place in view of a window through which one can see snow falling or fallen.

I particularly love the light snow casts. I know it's not really a source, precisely, of light, but there's probably a physics for why the night seems bright with snow. I could surmise--that the moon reflects more brightly the soft white surface, that the snow itself is comprise of crystals that must have a refractive capability, that the whiteness of the snow itself comprises a brightness--but my dad reads this sometimes, and he's an actual physicist, a physicist of light, to be precise. (Don't laugh, Dad. I'm a poet. I'm allowed.)

Over the course of this prodigious storm, I went out in a car to run an errand or two. On Friday morning, when the snow was wet and new, I drove across the valley for some groceries. On Saturday morning, I drove across the valley for a boutique my daughter and her friends put on to raise money for their charitable project. This morning, I drove across the valley to Millcreek where two of our favorite farmers was selling winter vegetables. When I left the west side, it was intermittently sunny; up on the bench, it was misty and there was still snow falling.

"You made it," one farmer said, handing me my eggs, to go with my red bok choy, chard, carrots, and fistsful of garlic (<< gratuitous vegetable details).

I drove myself and my vegetables home carefully, attentively. No one really loves driving in the snow--in fact, almost everyone I talk to about the snow has the "I hate to drive in it" caveat--and I saw some damage on one of my drives. But the fact of the snow, the fact that winter might really be here, after such a beautiful, warm--maybe a little too warm, but it's wrong to complain about that, I know--autumn: I could not be happier.


Tonight when we took Bruiser out, it was so cold. The sky was clear and starry. I made a note that I need to pull out more layers for walks at night. Bruiser pulled up and lingered at new stops and old, sticking his nose into the snow, his tail high.