Snow.

The snow arrived. It sure took its sweet time, but now its here... in bushels. Big, fluffy, white drifts of it piling high on my car and clogging up the roads and sidewalks.

I love the snow. It makes everything quiet.

It is as if it sucks the ambient white noise that titters in the background up, and all that is left is the crunch-squeak of snow underfoot or the swish-thunk of ski cadence and... nothing but sweet, sweet silence.

The silence and smells of snow remind me of my childhood.

I got the dog and took her snow shoeing this evening. While I was running around with her I had a vivid flash-back to my days skiing on the potato field with Robin and Sarah and the Shiffler twins. We'd ski our asses off until the lighted loop was illuminated and our lungs felt raw and tasted of iron -- and then we'd get to the darkened potato field, wide open and filled with that snow-silence. We'd toss ourselves backward into the softness of the snow and prop our skis in the bank so that our feet were resting up in the air and catch our breath and just... be there, looking at the night sky.

There is nothing I have ever seen that comes close to a clear night in Alaska. The air so clean and sweet that it tastes almost of vanilla; stars sharp against the rich prussian-blue velvet of the sky; the aurora borealis slithering and pouring and dancing across the sky. Nothing even comes close.

In other news: I have a terrible cold. Its probably the flu. Let's not think about it. All I know is that I have be coughing and hacking and blowing my nose raw and I haven't been out *moving* for two days and I just couldn't take it any more! Not one more second!! So I put on my red red union suit and bundled up real good and tromped through the snow drifts in and around the park by my house for an hour with the dog. I coughed a lot, but I feel lots less antsy! This is good. I need to read a bunch of articles and I can't seem to concentrate or sit still for it when I am all cooped up.

I want to ski this weekend. Ski and dance and laugh. And I can!