The plows rumble through town as they move the snow in the first few passes of the day. The forecast is for snow off and on all week. It’s dark at 5:30 – both morning and evening – but few venture out in the early morning snowfall. Large snowflakes drift into piles and come straight down with little wind and the white blanket brings a peace only snow can provide.
We’re fast approaching the shortest day. Winter Solstice will occur and we’ll start our slow climb to longer and hotter days. I almost hate to see it, because it is peaceful, the town expands from around 500 to a little less than 700. The noise of the visitors masks the beauty of the silence of the canyons and the solitude only winter can provide.
When the girls were little and I was a single parent, I was up every morning at 5:30 – had a cup of tea and wrote. Back then it wasn’t in Journals, it was letters to the girls father in Vietnam. A time to reflect on the week, share their ever-changing characters and plan for the day ahead. Over the years I continued that pattern and arose an hour before the girls – it was selfishly mine and that’s how I felt this morning as I tip-toed out to have tea and write.
The town will slowly awake, the city will start it’s routine of plowing the city streets, the locals will break out their tractors and put snow plows on the fronts of their pickups and the beautiful white blanket will slowly disappear. But until then, I shall sit and sip and write in the peace of the early morning and the snowfall. It will be a White Christmas!