I despise winter.

Except for that first snow. That first snow, which happened yesterday, always gets me.

Those newbie flakes, falling down at a meditative pace and clothing the dark black tree limbs and gardens now stripped of flowers, is loveliness. A kind of covering of sins, a veneer of purity, a wintry coat of Benjamin Moore’s best white.

I like to be huddled inside on a snowy day, warm and cozy with a book, or a good movie, soup on the stove, thick socks on my feet. I have to admit it’s a nice feeling.

But I only like it that once.

(And being awakened at 5:15 this morning by the hired plowers that digs out my neighbor’s yard was not at all pretty.)

But I’ll take the beauty. I’ll store the beauty. Beauty is something I’m always grateful for.