Betweens

I am not normally a person who likes "betweens"; with my spouse in another state, there's too much time on the road, and deciding which place to have as our home base (not that there was ever much discussion, since the house and five cats are here) feels way too unsettled. I prefer my life all of a piece, not that I've been able to describe it that way since 1986, the last time I lived, worked, shopped, and did 90% of my socializing in a one-square-mile area and didn't need a car. (When I say one piece, I mean it. If I have to start the car to accomplish a needed task, I automatically feel unsettled.)

But today I want to praise "between." I initially woke at 5:15, and the gray half-light already present let me know that significant snow had fallen. While the tiny type-A part of my brain said, "Ooh--you're conscious! Get up and grade papers," the warm bed and purring cats led to another ninety minutes of dozing. Becoming vertical at 6:45 and throwing open the curtains revealed a world between night and day: tree trunks dark against snow, hemlock boughs barely showing through the snow that covered them, a world of grays and silvers that always makes me think of snow elves and frost giants (not that either is likely to materialize in Parkersburg, West Virginia). The snow we had wasn't enough to be fairly labeled a storm, but the depth let me know that we had more than snow showers--enough to justify a totally stay-at-home day. The time was early enough that there was no evidence of critter activity: if the deer had been out, enough snow had fallen to cover their tracks, and the morning birds had not yet begun to scratch around for spilled seed. Just snow and wind and almost-light.

But now we seem to have whatever daylight we are going to get today, and I hear birds. Time to go see who's visiting.