First Snow

This is a picture of Richard and me from last year, oh say around February, when the snow had been hanging around for 3 months in fairly prodigious amounts. Not the record breaking of the year before that, but still impressive. I love this picture, the way the reds in my jacket and Richard's hat and the coop in the background break up the white, white, white of the world around us. I love the joy that comes out of the picture, the joy of being outdoors, alive, with Richard. And there is an exhilaration about being out in the snow here, I don't know what it is, it's gooney sometimes, but it brings a smile to my face. There's a white washed feeling to it, a cleansing, a wipe the slate clean, starting over, let's see what's up next lift to it all.

First snow. There had been a dusting of snow in October that had worried us into "oh no, is it starting already?!!" thoughts, but they had passed and the snow melted away into a sunny and glorious November. I'm not going to count that October fake out as a "real" first snow. Today feels like an official beginning to winter, though it doesn't "officially" begin for a couple of weeks yet. Richard and I had spent a soggy rain to sludge to snow weekend in New York City seeing friends and shows and wondering what was going on weather-wise back up north. Driving back today, with Richard reading out loud to me most of the way from Kenneth Turan's terrific new book about Joe Papp "Free for All," we watched as the accumulation steadily increased from patchy to full cover, until by the time we reached our exit it felt as if we were returning to a completely different country from the one we'd left only 3 short days before. Winter togs had been donned. White is in and it's going to be staying for a while. Maybe for months. And for today, that's just fine. It's new, it's fresh. No gnashing of teeth, no rending of clothes. Well, maybe some periodic gnashing, but no rending. I need those clothes. It's cold now.

We got home just before dark. Royce, our next door neighbor who watches over our birds and cats when we're gone, had put the birds up, so I had missed seeing our goose girl's reaction to the whitening of their world. They hadn't been thrilled by the October dusting, in fact, they'd tried to fly over it. I went up to their house where they were craning into their little side window to look out. They always look like little kids when they do that, looking out of the window for Santa Claus. They tapped on the panes of glass with their beaks as I got closer. They're adorable. (As I'm writing this, Richard has been talking to me about breeding them in the late winter/early spring. We've recently found out that Pilgrim geese are on the endangered list AND lay only once a year, but during that period each female lays up to 40 EGGS A PIECE!! Richard wants to sell the eggs. I think it could work. A Pilgrim goose egg-shipping enterprise, right here, right now.)

Up by the goose house, looking out at our place in the fading light, felt so good. It made me feel as if I were inside one of those perfect Christmas snow globes that someone had just gently shaken. It felt so good to be home, so good to be here, alive, near Richard. He was in the chicken coop at the time, gathering eggs, and scraping up (!!!) Well, you get the picture. At least he kept that kind of activity inside the coop so as not to sully the white perfection of my snow globe, glad to be home, picture.

We're in the kitchen now closing in on bedtime. The fire in the wood stove has embered out, the Christmas music from the living room stereo has faded away, and my eyelids are headed for sleepy time village. It's nice and cozy and the flannel sheets will feel just fine on the eve of this first snow. I welcome it in. Another season shift. So here's to flannel and fleece and scarves and gloves and all nature of wraps and sweaters. Here's to Christmas carols and hot cider and hot mulled wine and warm fires and candlelight and star light and Orion in the sky and the moon in all its faces and silhouettes of tall pines against the indigo skies and birds at the feeder and foot prints in the snow, here's to quiet and bird call and hibernating in all its forms, here's to sleep and dreams and slowing down and taking stock and warm nights reading books and planting seeds of new thoughts and new projects and the hatching of new ideas. Here's to our first snow, blanketing the good earth, covering the mulched, newly planted trees, covering the garden and the pond and the hill, flocking the pines and spruce and firs, giving a little taste of wonder, a dusting of magic, an uplift to our world.