february snowy morning

I awoke in Brewster, in the house where I grew up, yesterday before sunrise to find the world transformed by a couple inches of snow. I pulled on boots and crunched out to the woodyard with its whitened branches aglow in morning light. Boxes of firewood, blanketed with snow, sat quietly in rows on what was once our sledding hill. I went for a walk along the road with my mother as the sun rose gradually over the trees. In my life I have taken hundreds of walks on our road, and this was one of the most extraordinary. Mist hung thickly in the air over the reservoir, making the land appear to dissolve into clouds. By the time we turned back, the sun had climbed high enough to burn off the fog and the sky had brightened to a clear pale blue.