This morning when I woke up the rain was pounding heavy on the rooftops. Rain we desperately need after the long, dry summer. I listened to it for a long time, letting my mind wander from water, to transforming my new studio casita into a comfortable home, to the words I need to write for this years Nanowrimo novel. By the time my mind returned to the rain, the room had hushed and I was surrounded by a silence I hadn’t known since my few childhood winters in Rochester, New York. A silence I could wrap myself up in like the most comfortable quilt I’ve ever known — the corduroy one my mother made that still sits on the couch in my parent’s family room. I looked out the window to see what it was.
Fat snowflakes floated slowly down in bunches, coating the still-green apple leaves and newly mulched ground in a dusting of white. I have known snowy winters before. I have seen blizzards and light snow. I have experienced the “joys” of sleet and wintery mix. But this was special — my first real snow in my first real home in this strange new place. It is worth every centipede and every cold nose.