The last couple snows around here have been composed largely of those flakes the size of the palm of your hand. They’re the ones that are large enough that you can actually decode their beauty when they land on you.

And yet, I find myself, as they fall, rather than standing and staring, head back in wonder, squinting instead at the thermometer, worrying about what will happen when the mercury inches up a bit. Because late winter storms often turn to icy rain.

When did this happen? When did I turn into a woman fretting about what might be rather than one joyfully noticing what is? Perhaps my premature timidity is more of body at the moment than of spirit, but where the body goes, so must the spirit follow. I quail at the notion of skating, and yet as a child, we routinely picked up an 85-yo to take along to the pond with us and he would skate majestically too and fro. We hesitate to leave the house (is it that the appropriate footwear isn’t attractive?), and yet entire northern nations hop on their bikes in this winter and toddle off to work. They’re actually rejoicing in the notion that spring is coming when the flakes get large and wet.

Hmph. I think I’m going to have to mull on this a bit — and take some action. Because soon it won’t be just snow that circumscribes my dreams. Fear is a soul eater. Living in the present, pulling out the good, focusing on and magnifying it, offers the senses a banquet.