It’s just after midnight here and snowing and blowing like crazy. I realized something was up when my internet satellite signal wouldn’t work, so I turned on the lights outside to see a beautiful snowfall. Of course, I had to wake my wife who had just gone to bed. Then Jake, my 16-year-old who loves snow like I do, woke up from the lights and came out. He said, with great exaggeration, “Hooollly coooowww!”

I’ve always loved snow, even though I’m not a skier. I especially like to look at it come down in the reflections of the outside house lights at night.  It’s easily as pretty as a sunset over the ocean, or a full moon on a night when an occasional cloud walks across its face, or a hundred billion stars and a clear Milky Way on a totally black night. You can touch snow. It’s like a telegraph wire to the heavens and across the entire storm to wherever else it’s falling.

Lenie and I went back to our bedroom, cautioning Jake to turn off the outside lights when he goes to bed — “and that should be within 10 minutes.” We didn’t dare turn them off. We know Jake! He needs to soak in this midnight snow, commit it to memory so he can sleep with a clear vision of it. No school and sledding in the morning is what he wants to dream about.

I’m older so no longer need to sled, so I go back to my study and sit by the fire. It’s these simple pleasures I love most.

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