On the very last day when we were getting ready to go to the airport it begins to snow.  A belated white Christmas for me and my family.  Though we worry about flights and driving, I can’t contain my joy as the big fluffy white flakes swirl around us.

I try to catch them as I did when I was a child, the metallic taste of snow melting directly on the tongue.  Ennobled by its snowy collars and cuffs, the landscape takes on an otherworldly feel.  Each branch and blade of grass, each sloping roof, each ladder rung on train cars waiting on sidings: all things are graced by this silent, pervasive visitor.

My plane ascends without incident, the land receding beneath me under its opalescent mantle.  Flakes so tiny yet covering fields, highways, mountains.  On and on, reaching for  the green enigmatic depth of the sea.