{"id":276,"date":"2010-02-13T08:56:08","date_gmt":"2010-02-13T13:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.annakatedonovan.com\/?p=276"},"modified":"2010-02-13T08:59:24","modified_gmt":"2010-02-13T13:59:24","slug":"snow-at-last","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/annakatedonovan.com\/?p=276","title":{"rendered":"snow at last…"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s Friday afternoon and it’s snowing.\u00a0 All cities around us have already had snow.\u00a0 All of my friends have been inundated with it this year.\u00a0 My extended family has suffered through feet upon feet of snow, ice and power outages.\u00a0 But for us, this is our first snow of the season.\u00a0 As usual, we live in an area that is on the edge.\u00a0 You know that line on the radar where white changes to green?\u00a0 That’s where we live.\u00a0 When others are getting beautiful snow, we are getting freezing cold wind and rain.\u00a0 Misery.\u00a0 I know that many people have had it with the snow this year.\u00a0 I understand completely.\u00a0 But as I said before, this is the first time we’ve seen any flakes!\u00a0 Somehow, the snow gods smiled upon us today and we should actually have enough accumulation to make a snowman tomorrow.\u00a0 Hallelujah!<\/p>\n

A little while ago, I put on my long coat, heated up my mug of tea and stepped out onto the porch for a few moments.\u00a0 I was instantly calmed.\u00a0 A smile appeared.\u00a0 All of the usual noises had been dampened by the snow.\u00a0 The birds that were in the yard earlier had found their nests and bedded down for the night.\u00a0 No one was driving on our street.\u00a0 It was quiet.\u00a0 A blanket of white had enveloped our neighborhood.\u00a0 Everything looked clean and fresh.<\/p>\n

Nine years ago, I was pregnant with Abigail.\u00a0 In April of that year, Robert and I went on our last ‘there’s only 2 of us’ trip.\u00a0 I was five months along in my pregnancy and feeling good so we packed up and headed to Yosemite.\u00a0 When we got there, the weather was nasty.\u00a0 Cold, raining and cloudy.\u00a0 It stayed that way for three days.\u00a0 Amateur photographer Robert was not thrilled.\u00a0 We couldn’t see the top of anything.\u00a0 I’m not ashamed to admit that we were disappointed.<\/p>\n

On the last afternoon, it began to snow.\u00a0 We had dinner in the main lodge where we were staying and headed to our cabin for our last night in Yosemite.\u00a0 We sat outside and listened to the snow fall.\u00a0 It was a sound like no other.\u00a0 One snowflake finding its resting place doesn’t make much sound but the millions of large wet snowflakes falling sounded like a symphony.\u00a0 The sky was a deep cobalt blue.\u00a0 It snowed 18 inches that night.\u00a0 The next morning we headed down the un-plowed road back towards the park.\u00a0 The snow was brilliant and glittering white in the morning sun.\u00a0 It was gorgeous.\u00a0 We were in heaven.\u00a0 We took one last lap around the park and finally saw all of the grandiose beauty of the mountains.<\/p>\n