Winter Southern Style 2

I have so much to do, but I’d rather sit and sip and watch the snow fall.

 

It started slowly as I left America’s Best with my new contacts.  The snowflakes were so sparse, I smiled thinking ‘much ado about nothing,’ and stopped at Publix on my way home.  I didn’t need anything, but it was on my way.  I picked up a few things that were on special, but even the express lane had a very long line.

I don’t do lines unless it’s an emergency – this was not.  I abandoned my cart and went out the door into snow falling so thick the distant skyline was gone.  Birmingham drivers have difficulties driving in the rain, forget snow. 

I decided home was the best place to be and soon. I have everything I need there for the cat and me: a pantry and fridge full of food; good wine, cold beer, a stack of books to read (courtesy of the library); candles and oil lamps to read by if the power goes; battery TV for the news.

I also have a lot of work to do: a manuscript to edit for a client, paintings for my March show, a poem for an April contest, but it could all wait. 

It would all still be there when this fleeting wonder of nature stops and fades to memory and a few digital photographs that cannot begin to capture the magic of it all.  I put on a few layers of clothes, changed flats to socks and Sketchers, pulled the old beret down over my ears, and headed out for a walk with my camera.

Southside is a small village nestled comfortably in the city limits of Birmingham, Alabama, and I was not the only villager out and about to seize the moment:  children sledded down their front yard’s hill on 15^th Avenue encouraging their Mom to do the same; my Asian neighbor was out with her umbrella, sometimes sunbrella now turned ‘snowbrella’; the dog walker, whose large dog pretty much walks her, smiled as the dog tiptoed across the lawn; the new Yankee couple strolled by holding hands laughing at being given the day off for snow; and others too numerous to list.  Kindred souls all – out to play in the snow – smell the proverbial roses.

 

Home now.  I’m writing this by the window of my aerie, sipping a steaming cup of mulled wine, occasionally glancing at the still falling snow on the street below and contemplating the manuscript awaiting my red pen.

Tomorrow the sun will melt it all; Sunday the rain will wash what's left of it all away. Monday, it'll be as if it never was.  

Winter Southern Style – it's a fleeting thing.

© Perle Champion