Five days until Christmas
There is snow. Lots of it. As far as the eye can see and still more landing every second. White snow falling thick and silently on the world from every window. So clean and soft and quiet. It's a few days before Christmas. We don't have a tree up, yet. And Santa has yet to drive into NorthPollaboro to stock up on goodies, yet. My parents who we came out to see barely see us in the moments the weather will allow before pulling shut the curtains on sane travel. We stay in a snug, modern, one bedroom wood cabin which now has heat and water and lots of tall windows which look out over the meadows and trees. It is a very lovely, and remote place to be snowbound in. There's not a working television or a cell phone that has service, but a modem, so this is the way I maintain my technological fix with the universe. The quiet is meditative. I sift through my memories of Christmas past and present to reexamine what lasts and what is inconsequential. Like seashells I hold the re