Saturday dawned clear and sunny and I made sure to make the most of it; since Friday, Eastern NC had been bracing for plummeting temperatures and a late Saturday snow shower.
I ran some of my neighborhood loops, this time testing the right calf. I did a total of 5.6 miles, running negative splits. And it felt oh.so.good.
The weather had already begun to shift when I left the house around 10 am. The wind had picked up and was gusting. The sky had clouded over.
I opened the drapes to let in the last of the gray light and watched as the rain began. And then, suddenly, the rain turned to snow.
It was a pretty snow with big fat flakes. It warmed my Midwestern heart. I spent the remainder of the afternoon and evening snuggling under a blanket, reading about the pioneers of Annie Dillard's The Living carving out their lives in the Pacific Northwest.
A few days after the burial, the sky cleared, and people's spirits rose. The frogs in the marshes were peeping in their thousands by dusk, cougars screamed by night, and early in the mornings the flickers called out, and answered. Mornings, the sun seemed to appear from anywhere at random, like a swallow. It rolled up the sides of mountains and down the sides of mountains, range after range around the world's east rim. Every afternoon it threw a new set of shadows and shine on the parlor wallpaper; every night it flew behind a different island. The sun is a creature who flits, young Clare Fishburn thought; the sun is a bee. Daylight pried the darkness open and poured in; the whole beach was drunk and reeling on it.
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This morning, I woke, hoping to find clear streets. I was in luck.
The wind blew bitterly cold. Gangs of robins flew about, drinking water from puddles in the streets.
No one was about - except owners of huskies, who donned multiple layers to walk their thrilled pups.
My teeth chattered uncontrollably for the first half mile and I felt the air's bite on my face and the tender strip of exposed skin near my ankles.
Soon, though, my heart thumped enough blood quickly enough to warm even those spots.
The wind tossed random flakes of snow from the branches of
trees. One landed on my lip, another hit me square in the eye. If I
looked closely enough, I saw them dancing down, shards of crystal floating like dust motes.
Soon, the snow will be gone. Soon, winter will have passed.
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