Purpose

I awoke to a gray sky peeking in my window this morning. Duncan was curled next to me, his chin resting comfortably on my feet, one paw draped over my leg. I was slow to rouse, blinking away the sleep and dreams, warm under my comforter and snug with the cats curled against my chest. Dunc yawned and stretched his legs out far before him, rolled onto his belly and pushed himself up, wobbly and unsteady as his weight stirred the mattress, causing the springs to groan as he jumped down onto the warm carpet. He did his morning yoga, leaning far forward into downward dog, then coming up, arching his back and craning his head into the cobra.

I peeked through the vertical blinds and saw it was snowing, soft small flakes brushing past the window. I shook my head and sat up, scattering the cats as I dropped my feet to the floor. Duncan brushed against me, his cold nose on my naked calf raising goosebumps across my body. I shook my head as I pulled on my socks and jeans, telling him, "If it weren't for you, Roo, the snow would never touch Papa."

There are two things I have no use for: football and snow, and it just so happened that today was a day for both. We walked this morning, me tight and huddled up into myself, Duncan joyous and grinning as the flakes alighted on his face, bleaching his eyebrows and long snout. We walked again this afternoon while the laundry spun. And again tonight while the rest of the world sat transfixed before their televisions.

It was a quiet night and the snow continued to fall as we moved through the darkness and down the street, the soft crunch of it beneath our feet the only sound. There were no cars out and in the silence I couldn't help but feel as though it was Christmas Eve, when my hometown shuts down and no one ventures out. The snow was still coming in flakes that could hardly be called flakes. I could barely see them unless we passed beneath a streetlamp where they wafted about like gnats on a summer night, or like brilliant golden dust moats that dance in a sunbeam, the kind my grandmother told me were angels fluttering about us, keeping us safe. I could feel the snow on my face, though, cold and minuscule on my cheeks, refreshing on my eyelids. The air was clean and Duncan and I could not help but stop and turn our faces upward into the clouds, into the lazy fall of snow, into the vast quiet night spread out above us.

There is a use and purpose for all things, even those we are quick to dismiss, and especially those we strive to avoid.