Snowsquall

There is a wall of cloud tonight as I race to the grocery store in the next town over and pick up some Indian take-out on the way home. It's one of the many things I love about living rurally. That you can often witness the approach of weather. Plus, the clouds towering in the sky like that make me imagine they are the shadows of the mountains I miss in British Columbia.

The way snow can whirl around and appear to stand and walk across the road in front of you is magical.  Over the field to my right, a funnel of the white stuff skips across the broken stalks toward a line of towering cedars. Ghostly fairies holding hands, dancing in a ring.

When I get home, the snowsquall arrives in full force. I love to hear there is a "weatherwatch" on the radio. Sometimes there is nothing I like better than to watch the weather from indoors and, in the winter, it's like the flickering of celluloid; some old, black-and-white classic unfolding through my window.

Actually, there is one thing I love just as much as watching the weather: hearing it; listening to the wind howl and the snow blow around as though my house is floating out at sea suddenly. I wonder what my son thinks of the wind whistling at him and rattling the windows as I lay him in his crib for the night. Sipping some hot cocoa, the logfire in the woodstove warms my eyes and, as I retire myself, the sweeping sound of this squall tonight makes me burrow a bit deeper under the blankets.

Tomorrow morning, my car will likely be buried and I must await the plow to dig out my driveway before I can go anywhere, though the feeling of being snowbound rurally out here is both magical and humbling. Like Mother Nature giving us both (and this old, fieldstone farmhouse) one massive, snowy hug...

How I love winter!

Music: Let It Snow, Dean Martin