SNOW DAYS

  We got SNOW.

Beautiful, downy soft, powdered SNOW yesterday.

It has been years....Prince Regent was in grade school....since we had a snow like this.

It's been gorgeous to watch, though treacherous this morning as the scraped roads have turned to ice and the yards have a thick glaze on them.

Snow Days used to be ones full of kids...mine and most of the neighborhood...soggy gloves, coats and hats, boots strewn across the entryway, hot chocolate, grilled cheese and the sound of the same gloves, coats and hats thumping in the dryer.

It is quiet in this neighborhood now as most of the kids have grown and left the neighborhood. What few remain play on different streets now.

I realized yesterday as I sat by the window sipping my hot chocolate, wrapped in the soft silence watching the flakes gently coat the landscape as the cardinals played under the lone pokeberry bush overlooked in the fall clean-up that I missed the chaos and cacophony of children coming and going....reddened noses and cheeks punctuated by squeals of laughter across the yard. Even the dogs remained inside except for necessary trips outside.

I wasn't so much sad as reflective of the changes life brings us and smiled in the memories of days gone by. I thought of my widowed Tennessee friend who couldn't wait for her 16 year old son to wake up so they could go outside and play. She hates the cold, but she has found joy in bundling up and going outside rather than staying inside and whining about being cold. I admire this woman. I have watched her grow from frightened to fearless. I also love this woman. When I have fallen back she has helped pull me up just by her example as well as the occasional “get yer head out of yer ass” when I also needed that. She has told me it was OK to be weak and scared went cancer reared its ugly head, though she remained steadfast that the ugly toad would be beaten. It was and I’m glad she was there when the armor threatened to crack. But, I digress.

Eventually, Mr. Man went outside to finally have the chance to use that huge snow shovel he brought from NJ when he moved to NC and then here. I teased him about that. Now, I'm grateful he has it. Funny about stuff like that. As I watched him work I was struck by what a gift it is to have him here to share this part of our lives.

Some enterprising young man later in the afternoon got out on his bobcat and plowed all the roads here in our little ignored by the state and county subdivision. While it rather ruined the pristine look of the land, it will most certainly melt faster once we are above freezing again. Dunno who it was. He never stopped, never asked for money, just up and down and up and down until it ended up a pretty nice scrape job. Bless him for that.

 Tomorrow it will be back to the world of work and chaos of a different sort.

Snow Days aren't the same, but then neither is my life.

Still….it was a good day.