The proper response to the world is applause.– Ralph Waldo Emerson
9 am, 30 degrees, light dusting of snow, light north wind, light clouds– low tide.
The weather is light, the snow is light, and my heart is floating. I love the first snow. This is why I live here, for mornings like this. A tourist couldn’t book a trip to Haines for the first snow. You have to put your time in.
It pulls you outside– just to see it, then to step in it– and best yet, it’s all just for looking at today. There is not enough to be a bother, no shoveling, no plowing. Just a few snowballs. (Although now I’d like to see some more snow soon, to snowshoe and ski and sled in.)
Debra texted this morning and wanted to walk in this new white world, and she and her sheep dog joined us. She pointed out the white snow on one side of Pyramid Island and not the other– see it in the distance?
She also said that yesterday when she was walking home from work, Jimmy was in his yard tuning up his snow blower. She asked why he had it out, and he said that he could smell the snow coming.
“I thought about that a minute, ” she told me. “Can you smell snow?” she said, and answered her own question– “And you, know, I think you can. It has to do with temperature, obviously,” she said. I agreed. Then she said, she took a deep breath and she could also smell the snow Jimmy had, it was on the wind. A clean, cold, damp smell. “Isn’t that something?” She said. “To smell snow?”
I have a surprise coming, and that means you won’t see tomorrow’s morning walk until late in the day. I will give you a hint: we are going south for a week.
