You Know What I Love?

I love lying in bed in the dark of the early morning, listening to the gentle voices of the NPR hosts. I especially love it when they say, "Seattle Public Schools closed", because if the public schools are closed, so are we. Snow day!!!!!!!!!!

The snow started to fall around 4 yesterday afternoon. First it came in fat pellets of snowy hail. But after laying a nice crumb coat of icing, the snow began in earnest and it fell until at least 11pm.

Our snow blanket is 4 inches thick, with drifts that are even deeper elsewhere. But 4 inches is enough to make everything beautiful. Everything. I love that about snow. The Psalmist said, "Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow", the most apt of apt metaphors. Weedy gardens are smooth, lush with snow. Bare branches and the empty rat-tail vines of the hop plant are rounded with blooms of white. The snow is very powdery and little blizzards occasionally blow from tree branches and rooftops. A small group of tiny black birds gathered in a tree across the street and I'm pretty sure one of them said, "Oh, this is why we're supposed to fly south for the winter".

The light has a blue tint and the air is quiet. Even now, at the height of the morning, there is that particular hush that only happens when it snows. The only sound is The Dog, barking furiously at the children walking past, dragging sleds up the hill. (Sleds around here could mean anything from an actual sled (rare) to a large slab of cardboard (more common)).

The Child has been out since 8am with neighbors. She would have gone sooner but I was trying to enjoy the luxury of sleeping in on a school day. Funny how I have to use a cattle prod and air horn to rouse her on any given morning but today she was up at 6:30, watching the news and waiting, as only a kid can wait, for assurance that school would be closed.

The sky is perfectly blue now. It is still very cold but that is small comfort. Around here, snow disappears as quickly as it comes. Last night the street was full of families, making snow angels while the moon shone, because there wasn't even a guarantee that there would still be snow come morning. Now we all expect it to be gone by evening and the landscape will resume its dark, sodden January appearance. But for now we get to enjoy the luxury of perfected landscapes, the giddy pleasure of marking virgin snow with a footprint, the delectable comfort of hands chilled red, cupped over a steaming cup of cocoa. Snow day!!!