One Last White

I tried so hard to be lazy, wanted it so badly, wanted nothing more than not to walk the dog, not to change into my heavy coat, the one I'd hung at the back of the closet. I sprawled on the bed in my sweater, Duncan spread across me, one eye on my face, one darting to the window where the snow fell on the other side in thick, heavy globs, shattering on the sidewalk but catching on the delicate branches of the shrubs where the little birds have only recently spent their afternoons hopping and playing. Oh, he wanted it so badly, more than I wanted to stay warm and dry and dozy on my soft pillows. My shoes had somehow found their way free of my feet and had fallen like fat, brown sticks, one on top of the other, both halfway under the bed where Duncan sometimes sleeps, neither wanting to be found. Olive curled up on the big pillow closet to my head and the warmth of her heavy, gray and white body was already beginning to pull me into a nap. Duncan was patient but finally the call of the now was too loud for him so he jumped up, shook the entire bed as he pounced on me and startled Olive away. I had no choice; it was snowing what will certainly be the last snow of the season and I could not deprive him of a good long gallop through all the fluff and fuzz collecting in the park, erasing the greening fields and chasing away the children and their hovering, droning parents.

I don't remember how it happened. I can't imagine I moved quickly, certainly not quick enough for Duncan. Somehow or another I was coated and shoed, a bag of treats in one pocket, my camera in the other, out the door and down the yard, ducking under the drooping, snow-blanketed branches on my way to the park, Duncan mushing ahead, scooping snow in his jaws as he moved forward. And then there I was, in the park, standing atop the mound looking first up into the branches at the snow sifting through them and the few flakes that managed to navigate their way to the pine needle-covered earth at my feet, then at the expanse of white spread out around us in all directions, thick with lumps like cottage cheese. The grass was buried with only some of the taller blades protruding, periscopes made for ants and roly-poly bugs. The willow standing guard near the west field was frosted in sugar and up to her ankles in melted snow, but she looked magnificent and regal in her new dress, a tall queen surveying her kingdom.

Quiet joy all around, the kind only sudden Spring snow can bring.