When winter lets us pause

Jan. 22, 2005

The wind howled outside, pressing urgently against the living room windows. The blizzard drove temperatures to single digits, dropped visibility to near zero, carved ghostlike snowdrifts on the bushes and cars outside. And we relaxed, snuggled with a glass of wine by the fire, content to know that there was no place to go and that, with 2 feet or more on the way, life would be slow to resume its frenetic pace.

Winter can grind. Cracked hands, wet feet, slush to plow through, inches to shovel, aching back, runny nose. Yet it also offers one of life's delicious pleasures: the unannounced day off, a day to read or strum the guitar, to write a sonnet (if a sonnet-writer you are) or tread silently and bouyantly on snow shoes over the whitened landscape. Not that I did any of these. But opening an eye at 7, I rolled over and slept in. It sure felt good.