Snow finally fell in Anchorage and we’ve had 24 hours of bliss. Not because we’re avid skiers or because we plow driveways as a side hustle. It’s because we intentionally stranded ourselves.
Only about six inches of snow fell here in West Anchorage, starting on Sunday afternoon. But each year the streets (and highway medians) fill up with people who forgot how to drive in the winter.
Thus we decided to stay home and let everyone else play bumper-cars. Although DF did have a work-related assignment that afternoon, he managed to keep it between the ditches coming and going.
Once he got home we stoked up the fireplace insert and turned off the computers. We enjoyed a long evening of piano playing (him), a New York Times crossword puzzle (me), sharing the meal prep and cleanup, listening to music, reading and talking. For a time we turned on the outside light and shut off the inside ones, the better to watch the snowflakes swirl.
He’d once mentioned the John Greenleaf Whittier poem, “Snow-Bound,” a memory of how the poet’s family endured – and enjoyed – a particularly harsh spell of winter weather. It seemed appropriate to our situation so I asked if he would read it to me. Since he couldn’t find the book that contained it, my computer got switched back on.
We discovered the actual title is “Snow-Bound: A Winter Idyl.” We also discovered that a room lit mostly by firelight and perfumed with supper fragrances is a perfect place for a recitation of that particular poem.
A giveaway from last March, “
Today dawned a typical September day: gray and foreboding. The sky was the color of a galvanized trashcan and the air tinged with a chill that whispered of summer’s end.
Autumn is coming, sooner than I’d like to acknowledge. Although the days are still mild (50 to 60 degrees) the angle of the sun has changed, making its rays seem tentative and transitory. That is, when the sun can be seen – it’s been raining a lot, too.
