It’s 8:15 in the morning. The sun is flashing off the snow and making everything even brighter. Across the living room Dejah is on her back in the love seat, her snout and front paws hanging over the side, back paws more or less pointing to the ceiling. Red is asleep on the recliner, and Summer is sprawled out underneath her feet. The dishwasher is churning away, the only sound.
Outside on the deck, two mourning doves peck at the seed on the railing, and a smaller bird hops along the floor picking up bits that have fallen from the feeder.
I heard a red-wing blackbird’s chitter this morning, a sound we only hear during the spring and summer, and the trees have sprouted buds, defying the two feet of snow that fell just a week ago. Temperatures above freezing every day have worn at the edges of the snow cover.
Winter is slowly losing its grip. We will be assaulted again, no doubt, but the signs are falling into place as they always do: This, too, shall pass. In three months the cold will be a distant memory and the sun will be finished melting and on to the task of growing.
These are the moments when peace settles over and we are reassured that renewal follows after desolation.