the lovely awaited storm...

When it finally came, it was a good one. an all night snow, a thick, wet afghan. i kept flicking on the lights outside around the shed and on the porch, just to make sure that it was still there, it hadn't stopped or gone anywhere else. after so many years, i just couldn't accept the fact that it really was going to snow, snow hard, and stick.

so i stayed up until 5:30, long past the time for any sane person to go to sleep. i was by myself, drinking diet lime coke and washing and folding laundry. i was on the computer, i was peaking through the window into the night to see if those flakes were continuing to fall. and they did and did and did. and i was happy like a little kid, feeling silly. but it didn't matter much. you take your small pleasures where you can find them.

we ended up with eight inches or more. i spent time watching the birds pecking around the bird feeders, wondering how they would get to the feed. i needn't have worried. they found a way, called their friends, came and went. i just made a perch by the sink, leaning into the window to get closer.

i didn't go out in it but once on monday, just to get the newspaper. some part of me didn't want to put a footprint in the snow. i just wanted it to stay clean and smooth, unblemished. i guess the snow got to be a moment with infinite possibilities.

we were out of school for 3 days. the sun came out, austin created a meltdown of a different sort when he put my car sideways in the backyard. at that point, the snow moment morphed into a whole different memory. schizophrenic snow.

and then in the course of 3 days we went from 9 degree overnight to 80 degrees and shorts. the switch was astounding and startling. i dragged out my bike and fixed it so i could ride it. i did the spring yard things, pruning my butterfly trees and wacking down the old, dried husks of last year's zebra grass around my fountain/pond by the porch. i didn't quite finish the task, deciding to let the wind blow the rest of the loose grass to wherever it chose to go. now it is raining, and spring seems somewhat hung up like a piece of laundry on a clothesline. it flaps around, out there waiting for someone to take it down, smelling clean and fresh, and put it on and wear it, even if the weather is cold and opposing. i just watch it hanging out there, suspended, and wonder when i will want to walk and unlease it, free it.