Saturday, April 07, 2007

A Flash Of White


The morning is crisp and quiet. I wake to the smell of fresh coffee and the high pitched cheers of two small children. Followed by far too much commotion for too early an hour.

They're all smiles and claps and a tangle of limbs as I find them throwing on the clothes and jackets and mittens.

I pull back the curtains to find everything drown in a pale haze. Snow! Real, honest snow, dusting the world as far as my poor old eyes could see.

This is April. It isn't supposed to be snowing! I'm not supposed to be huddled under a blanket. I'm supposed to be in shorts and drinking tasty beverages!
But the kids are loving it.
They sprint down the steps and begin to furiously scrape giant hand fulls of snow off the car. They don't remember how to make snowballs. Don't know to compact them down to improve their kinetic impact. For as long as the snow lasts, it is like one long cotton fight between two laughing, red nosed drunks. They slip and laugh and try to freeze each others heads.


I try to lend a hand, but it isn't long before my fingers are numb. Then the minivan is wiped clean of ammunition. And the fragile dusting on the ground melts in the new morning light.
But for a while, it was a winter wonderland. And we Southerns have our fun in the brief flash of white.

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