Powder

Awoke this morning to another 6 inches of snow. It's still coming down. By my count this is at least the 8th snowfall since Thanksgiving. I've never seen anything quite like it. The weather reporters here have been off base all week: a "major storm" on Tuesday yielded only an inch, whereas last night's "few inches" brought considerably more.

I've always loved the snow, but even this is testing my patience. It does create a remarkable inconvenience, and people just seem edgier.

Which is a shame, because one of the things I like best about the snow is the potential to bring a quiet peacefulness.

About snow, the naturalist Joseph Wood Krutch has said:

"There is no other time when the whole world seems composed of one thing and one thing only."

The pup let me sleep in until sunrise this morning, but still required a walk. So we headed out into the snow. It was quiet still. Only a very few others had yet rallied themselves to begin the task of excavating the sidewalks and the cars parked on the street. The quiet chaos of city life had momentarily been suspended. The neighborhood was bright and the air fresh. Atlas turned primal, sniffing out marking spots, even under the frosty blanket. For 15 minutes I didn't think about my job, or what I was or wasn't doing enough in my acting pursuits, who I was missing or what shopping needed to be done. Just me, the dog, the snow, the neighborhood.

When we got back home, I opened up all the blinds, then made bacon and pancakes from scratch.