Snow Day

  The dog, however, pays no mind to the chill, and leaps with joy, her normally white fur looking positively creamy gold against the snow. Her nose is powdered, her eyes are glinting, her tail is up. That is one happy beast.

  I’m trying to be half as chipper. I’m out her to please her, and rack up a few more steps on my pedometer, which has proven what I’ve long suspected: I am a sloth of epic proportions. Ten thousands steps a day? Lately getting over 3k is almost a miracle. Whatever; I have agreed to add at least 300 steps a day. So here we are, walking in a winter wonder land.

  The squirrels and deer know better, they are hunkered down somewhere. even the birds have gone to bed early. I’m fantasizing about a steaming bowl of porridge. But I am also feasting my eyes on a landscape transformed.

  This is the same place that hums with insects and frog music in the humid summertime, woven thickly with vines climbing high in the trees. Trees that now are charcoal grey drawings of themselves, waving like rushes in the wind. Which is picking up.

  I know I can enjoy it because my warm and cozy home is right there, no more than 300 steps from here. So I do enjoy it, the wind, wind that takes hundred year old and hundred foot tall hardwoods and makes them wave in unison, wind that sweeps over the frigid river encouraging it to ice, wind that would be deadly if I were out here 300 years ago in this flimsy coat.

  I’m an artist who lives for color, and today I’m thrilled by the grey of it all, quieting the hues down to barely readable: the green of holly leaves not really visible in their dark forms, a breath of gold where grasses still poke above the snow, and curled brown oak leaves that look like dried blood, the most brilliant thing around that isn’t white.

  Time for tea, and a book, curled up under the comforter. with a warm dog for extra heat. I give thanks for my indoor life. But I never forget what its really like. Out there.