Winter

Late Saturday morning: the parents have taken the car into town, the older brother has yet to wake up, I curl up in a red fleece blanket with a steaming cup of tea and drag a chair out onto the deck to watch the rain fall. Cold enough to see my breath, surrounded by the sound of drips, fog encasing the mountain valley. As far as I'm concerned there is no one else in the world for my solitary moment. Hear the car door slam, brother arises and the day moves on...

Driving home from the mountains, the rain turns to snow and the snow turns nasty. Fog coats the landscape, swirling snow gusts across the highway. I actually fishtailed turning off the highway on the ice. I am not supposed to be here right now, I think. I am somewhere on a beach full of sunshine watching the hotties walk by. That doesn't seem to help the snow go away.