Monday

So many of us like that thrilling first snowfall. The one that's deep and has a life span of more than an hour or so. Heavy on fir branches, or, light and puffy on every bare twig. A silent moment of rare beauty.

But that's not the way winter usually comes our way. It's more like today: there'll be gray skies, then a cloud break, with streaks of sunlight and maybe you'll just catch one such cloudbreak, even if it's a workday for you, a day mostly spent indoors. (I did, on my way to an early, pre-breakfast yoga class.)





Then the sun disappears again, at which point we prefer to think about something other than the weather. Maybe like us, you eat breakfast by a window and you don't even pay attention to what's out there.





Even as Ed glances outdoors and comments -- there's that brown Wisconsin landscape… And I groan. But then he chides me for it -- do you remember how beautiful it is when the snow comes? Well yes, sure, but it's not here yet and don't hold your breath either, because we can go through many weeks of cold and brown and no snow.


We come out of our worlds of work -- mine's now at the computer, Ed's is still outdoors, still with that honeysuckle maze of sawed off branches -- for a late lunch at the kitchen table. Peanut butter and jam. Strawberry for him, heaped heavily, blueberry for me, heaped lightly. And I drink tea and he drinks hot chocolate and I suppose that's a reminder of where we're at with our calendars because he only asks for hot chocolate when we're traveling or, at home, when it's cold outside.




And as we talk about inconsequential but interesting things (travel!) I glance up and notice flakes of snow. There's your picture -- Ed tells me. He's sweet in pointing out possibilities, especially on days when there really are none to speak of. But I'm ignoring them. That stuff wouldn't even show up on a photo, I mutter.

But when he goes out to his sheep shed to take care of this or that, I do take out my camera and I aim it back at our entrance to the farmhouse. Just for that insignificant dusting of snow on our brick walk. Because even in these small amounts, snow is just so beautiful!