I went for a walk in the snow the other day. Sometimes I almost think I like getting dressed up for things more than actually doing them – almost. But it was good to be wrapped up in my black greatcoat (Peter Peter you were so sweet so smart so good. Peter Peter I loved you so but it was Edmund I couldn’t stop thinking of), toque pulled low over my ears and my gloves so sweetly incongruously pink.
There are pictures. Not very good ones, I was worried about my camera getting too wet. Mostly there was dancing in empty alleys, slipping and sliding and twirling. Singing, too - but quietly, because that’s harder to keep secret. Throwing palmfuls of snow into the air and spinning under the induced blizzard and telling the quiet frozen air how it shook me all night long.
And then watching my footprints as I headed home. Someone with heavy sensible boots had trod the same road but my prints wove in and out of the broken path, small narrow feet like a piper’s.
Winter may be the cruelest season, but it is the best one.
