Insomnia

We had our first real snowstorm the other night. While Steve and I dug into a bagful of popcorn and watched The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the flakes drifted gently down and blanketed our car. We drove home in the muffled winter that glowed yellow as street lamps lit the drifting crystals.

Arriving home, we worried that our car might not make it up the driveway, but our snow tires gripped and carried us safely into the garage.

I was restless, not tired. Perhaps the root beer at the theatre was caffeinated; perhaps I was haunted by Lisbeth Salander's wary eyes and solitariness in the world. Finally, I climbed our squeaky stairs and glanced into our son's bedroom on the way to my own.

Through his bedroom window, I saw that the storm had picked up steam. I went back downstairs and grabbed my camera.

It is always brighter than one expects when it snows, the meagre night-time light reflecting off so many prisms. One full fifth of a second captured the trajectory of the snow. To the naked eye it simply fell; to the lens it threw itself down. No longer a gentle prayer, it was now a loud fury driving winter to ground.

I watched for a long while, the beeps of plows drifting through from the major thoroughfares.

I went back to bed and tried (in vain) to sleep. When I came back down, the plows had visited our quiet street and the snow had tapered off.

Still golden, still magical.

Dawn came almost imperceptibly and still I could not sleep. Steve woke up and we went for a walk. I KNOW! I WALKED! Outdoors, even. What's more, it was my idea! All so I could take some pictures.

But I had dawdled too long in my hunt for the right boots and gloves. Twenty minutes earlier, this tunnel through the forest would have been aglow like the forest in Narnia. Still, it beckoned.

As we walked through the forest, the light turned blue as the sun tried to burn through the clouds.

Snow still clung to trunks, not yet disturbed by wind and dogs and cross-country skiers.

We scurried as we turned around and headed out of the forest and into the biting wind.

Sad elephant is sad.

The park was abandoned.

It was good to step inside, instantly blind as our glasses coated with steam. And I settled down to a hot coffee and slid the memory card into my laptop to see what treasures the lens had captured this time.

All this, and it wasn't even eight in the morning. Those morning larks may be on to something, but I'll never let on.