rumbling plows

The plows are rumbling outside. It's been snowing big fat flakes nonstop for hours, and the whole outside world seems wrapped in a giant cocoon of soft wet snow. As fast as you shovel and sweep, it keeps piling up, and it's so damn soft and fuzzy outside you find yourself shoveling your neighbor's sidewalk just to have an excuse to stay outside a bit longer, to make that pot pie lunch go away faster so you can have hot chocolate and really need it when you go in.
I love winter today, and as a concept. I remember how incredibly cold and clear it was skiing across the lake when Northern Wisconsin was home, how the pressure cracks would boom and thunder on cold days, and how much fun it was to ride horses across the lake, knowing that there was three feet of ice under where you were paddling a canoe two months before.
I learned how to drive on a lake. A big hog of a GMC truck, one of many my dad beat to death. The thrill of cruising on the ice at 60 Mph, cranking the wheel sideways and spinning in circles till you wanted to barf beat any carnival ride.
In the late winter when the ice finally broke, the sound of a million shards of ice banging into each other and the shoreline sounded like a giant cocktail glass being rattled by god, mixing a daquiri only she could drink.
Of course, by mid March all this beauty will suck unconsenting donkey dicks, but today, there's moments of early winter euphoria outside. I'll worry about the ice damns on my roof some other day.