I take Willow out tonight for her usual last visit to the yard before bedtime. It is dusk and the sun is just starting to disappear over the lake making a pink horizon and the black branches of the trees, a silhouette.
The snow has a hard crust on it which gives me the feeling of walking on the smooth surface of the moon. My boots make a crunching sound, the only sound I can hear now. I see reminders of warmer days; my neighbor's barbecue grill, the picnic table. They are reminders of good times, warm times. Iris' Puerto Rican specialties are the focus of those gatherings where I bring a bottle of wine and a lawn chair and we laugh and sing Luther Van Dross tunes after Sergio has given in to our pleas to haul the speakers out onto the lawn. This country life is new and wonderful to them and I smile at their appreciation of a starry sky and clean air. As much as I try to avoid the drama coming from their apartment across the hall, I am grateful to them for these memories.
It feels like the dead of winter tonight even though the calendar tells me spring is less than three weeks away. The air is cold and crisp and I'm amazed at how 21 degrees can be so tolerable when the air is still and free of dampness.
Willow does her business and we head back into our warm apartment still smelling of dinner and clean laundry. Soon it will smell of fresh air coming through open windows. Soon.
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