I'm in Kevin's study -- it's around 10-ish, and I haven't been up that long. Drinking my first cup of tea. We were up very late talking last night, and I'm still tired. He's asleep (poor munchkin is sick, and I feel bad for keeping him up last night). I'm trying to get used to typing on his little laptop again (itty-bitty keyboard), and waking up, and trying to concentrate on the screen instead of just getting up and staring out the window.
The window faces towards the mountains. The Wasatch Mountains, I think they're called. A little of the city spreads out, fairly flat, and then the mountains rise, so close, like the edges of a bowl, crisp and blue and white, with banks of white cloud behind them and the light shining through, so that everything glows -- the sky, the snow on the mountains, the trees with golden leaves still clinging. If I could paint!
There is snow everywhere. It was warm yesterday when I arrived -- no need for a coat -- but the cab driver told me that storms were a-coming. A little one today, a bigger one on Saturday, and a big one Monday. Kevin didn't think it was that certain, but dang if the cab driver wasn't spot on for this one. Snow about half a foot deep blankets the neighbor's yard, the quiet cars, the street. Kev lives in a quiet part of town, and when I woke up the sidewalk hadn't been cleared yet -- I'm not sure, but there may still have been snow on the road.
I love the way trees look, branches heavy with snow. They all look different. Some bear their snow lightly -- traceries accenting their angles and joints -- young women in winter finery, not dressed warmly enough, but refusing to admit it, and beautiful in their defiance. Some bow with the weight of it, branches bending, curving, almost touching the ground -- old women who are too tired to resist, and perhaps too wise. The snow will eventually melt, and they know it. As long as they don't break in the meantime...
There's no ice right now. Ice on the branches is best of all, at night, with the moonlight shining down and encasing every individual branch and twig in glittering light.
Heather, Karina, I wish you were here. We'd have such fun in the snow! I was never very good at winter activities -- building snowmen and throwing snowballs -- I'm a terrible shot, but it doesn't really matter, does it? (I *am* good at sneaking up on people and stuffing snow down the back of their shirts, but that is not the sort of thing that endears you to your friends).
I am still incredulous at the snow. I am sure that in a few days I will be complaining of it, but for now -- I've adapted to California, you see. I expect rain in the winter, weeks and months of incessant rain. And I like rain, I'm very fond of rain, I can take a lot more rain than I can take snow, but still... it is so very lovely here right now.