We wake to the first snow of the season and reports of tangled traffic. It happens to be a morning when we have an early appointment in town. No matter. We’re Canadian, we expect this. I’m quietly giddy at the snow, the dark, and the start of hygee season. Let nesting commence with blankets, reading
It’s cold this morning, but the sky is clear and it promises to be a sunny day. It looks like the temperature is finally going to start getting above freezing later this week—let the melt begin. It’s time to start thinking about gardening, but I’m not quite there yet. Flannel, blankets, reading socks, and the hum
It’s too loud. The cacophony has risen to such a level that I struggle to hear. There’s just too much. Of everything. Snow falls, unwelcome on this last day of February, but with it comes a whisper. And a beckoning. I step outside with the Yorkie and, as white feathers fall around me, a blanket of
February, the shortest of all the months, seems long again. It’s dragging. I looked forward to a bit of hibernation when we returned from Mexico at the start of it, and winter finally decided to show up. I’m done with it now. I see images on social media from the Northwest Flower and Garden show
We’re home for a few weeks, and I intend to settle comfortably into a rut lined with words. Reading and writing, the necessary things that call for attention as winter gives one final roar before melting into spring. I pull out my manuscript and reorient myself in the work. I pull out the copyedited manuscript of
”Stinker! She’s not even going to turn around,” my daughter, Laurinda says. We’re standing on what must be the sidewalk in front of her new home—the one we’ve spent the weekend helping her settle in to—but is now buried under some of the largest snowbanks I’ve seen in recent memory. The morning air is cold;
Winter arrives and, with it, the shortest day of the year—starting tomorrow, it’s downhill toward gardening season. And still, no snow. Butter tarts, a sweet Canadian treat, are happening here today and probably not much else. Winter arrives, waiting continues. Words are few.