Let it snow!

I don't really like winter that much. Well, it's hard to like winter because I don't actually like being cold. I know, that's kind of anathema coming from a Mainer living in Vermont, but it's true. And winter and I, we got off on a really bad foot recently - well, I lost my footing and landed on the pavement. It's been rainy, sleety, icy, snowy, 45 degrees then frozen again. In February.

They say Vermont will have the climate of Virginia in 50 years under higher emissions scenarios and the climate of North Carolina in 100 years - "can't you just see the sunshine..." But the road to Carolina weather is dangerously slick, and it's getting to me.

And then it snowed. It snowed and snowed and snowed. And this blanketing white, quieting everything, bending the pine bows deep, has pacified me, too. And I walk through the soft, peaceful wood at dusk, admiring the beauty of the world etched in black and white, and I am grateful to have the opportunity to indulge my nostalgia - to remember what winter really is.