#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

Snowfall, Charles River

Moon has dusks for walls,

October’s days for a floor,

crickets for rooms, windy halls.

Only one night is her door. . .

~ Excerpt from Moon From the Porch, by Annie Finch

I love a walk that is exceptionally astonishing. Today. I woke late. I just let myself sleep, as if it’s winter. It’s only Halloween. A mixed up holiday. I go to the basement and take up my cross country skis and boots and I put them on for the first time since March. I am eager to ski in October. I get them on and start off, but I’m immediately stalled. The skis are icing in the wet snow. I try scraping, and I can see that the conditions are not going to work today. I’m mildly irritated. Change into walking boots, I’ve put on the one with holes in them, and crossing the snowy meadow I feel the snow wetting my socks. I stop caring when I get the river’s edge. The stunning beauty of snow glistening in sunshine. The laden trees, strangely, with their leaves still on. Ahhhhhhh. What a morning. I call my youngest, who is home, but she has showered already and decided not to come. I call and coax her; I know she won’t want to miss this and she relents, joins me and the dogs. Suzi is snow-happy, giddy and young. I am right. Yes, often mothers are right. My daughter is sun-blind and happy in snow. We walk around the river and into the woods. I hope to find the Airpod that fell out of my ear into the fresh snow last night after dark on the trail. Well, I suspect it’s hopeless, and it is. But in a pleasant way. Scarless blue sky. A full moon coming tonight. It’s a very happy Halloween. We have family time by the fire as if it’s a snow day; watching the rest of The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix. We binge. We can’t help it. Exceptional series. Later, I learn my daughter has made a very short video of images from our morning walk in the snow, based on Robert Frost’s poem, “A Dust of Snow.” I am so happy to see Suzi like a puppy today. In the late afternoon we make little treat bags of candy for the neighborhood children and the girls walk them up, in a reverse trick or treat, and leave them on the doorsteps. And the clocks, the clocks will be turned back.