Snow Duvet

Just spent three days blissfully meandering with my dog Sadie in the snow. Loved it. Submitted prayers of gratitude, over and over, for this chance to be in the white world with a creature so fully tuned to her surroundings.

What, I wondered, made this so magical? What, indeed, was so special? What that had not been already been mired in the sticky sweetness of cliche? I think it was the edges. When snow falls, crispness is filmed. No more ninety degree angles; it's all about curves and roundness and ambiguity. Can't tell where this ends and that begins, which is a good feeling. Sadie and I like that blur.

Our Sunday morning run was blissful. Few folks were awake. Few cars were out. As my late husband used to say when we were crossing a hundred square miles of desert in southwestern Oregon: "Not much happening." That's true. On this snowy Sunday morning, Sadie and I found that there was "Not much happening." And that was a very good thing.

The soft roundness prevailed. No junky fast food wrappers huddled next to a building...just a sweet berm of white. Few raspy vehicles pushing their noise and smell down the road...too slick, too cold, too early for folks to be out. No boom boxes, no barking dogs, no screeching kidlets. Too cold, too early, too icey for that.

What Sadie and I did find was this: certain dedicated, quiet folks were out taking care of critical tasks. A bundled up gent was trekking with his leashed lap dog while his German shepherd chased tennis balls flung into the snow. A resigned homeonwer shoveled his driveway in hopes that a furnace repairman would soon pull in. A primly suited elder warmed his Buick for a bride, so they could putt on over to the church for Sunday school. All chatted with us cheerfully, sweetly, as if their time were on hold. The snow suspended things for a bit.

I liked this batting of a snowy Sunday morn. I liked not seeing edges of anxiety, haste, tension. I liked that we could run through white stuff not marked with tire treads, boot prints and chunks of blackened wheel-well snow. Sadie and I liked the duvet softness of this snowy Sunday morning. Hope it happens again soon.