not yet spring.

It is a quiet day today. A perpetual early morning gray hangs in the air as snow falls gently, covering whatever exposed ground that had begun to reveal itself. I took the dogs for a longer walk that usual because for the first time in a very long while I found myself once again in love with winter. It has been such a long winter of wanting and waiting. Somehow I think I let my favorite season get entirely caught up in that feeling of frustration.

For a few hours today I will have to take a step sideways from the forward momentum of my life in order to do some pre-formatting editing on my thesis and then contact the graduate office to make sure all my paper work is in order so that I might soon actually walk away with a degree. I am reluctant to return to this aspect of my life, but am finding the heavy clouds helpful. I will brew a fresh pot of coffee and cozy up with my computer so that I might finally and truly be done with this one lingering aspect of my past.

I feel tender today. I feel like I might easily cry. I feel very present as though I exist beyond the surface of my skin. Maybe that is why the gray feels so good. A buffer between me and the world. The snow has a calming effect. So much so that, upon returning home with the dogs, I simply sat out in the yard watching them play for a very long time. It made me wish for a place in the country. Somewhere that I wouldn't feel like a weirdo for sitting outside in the snow for no particular reason.