Soft Light

I stepped out onto the back patio and breathed deep. The air was warmer by 25 degrees than it had been just two days before. The sky was clear and blue, although not the deep, bright, blue of summer. It was more akin to the brilliant white-blue of an early spring sky, although the world did not yet smell like spring. How could it? Every inch of the backyard was still covered in snow. There was no way for the smell of earth coming alive again to permeate the air.

Sophie jumped up and down through the snow in the back, looking like an astronaut excitedly exploring the moonscape. Every time she jumped big waves of snow-spray would burst up from her feet. She was so happy that she could jump through the snow again. For the past several days it had been so cold that the top layer of snow had frozen solid. She would go outside to do her business, and no matter how hesitantly she tried to navigate the snow in the backyard, she would invariably end up sprawled out, on her belly, having slipped like Bambi on the iced-over pond. I continued to find it amusing each and every time, but she did not.

It was warm enough to be outside without a coat for the first time in weeks and I could hear birds singing in the trees on the other side of the common ground in the back. There may still be snow everywhere you look, but it was melting so fast that the sound of water running into the gutters from the drifts that had collected on the rooftops was as loud as a rainstorm. If you had closed your eyes, you would have sworn that this was what we had on our hands—and springtime rain shower. Well, maybe not. No smell of wet earth.

It was bright and sunny and glittering in the afternoon sun, but the light was still watery, soft.

It was enough to make me realize how cooped up we have been; how stuffy the house seemed. With horribly cold temperatures and snow after snow after snow and then sickness to top it off, I couldn’t even imagine going back inside. It was only in the mid-forties outside, but I wanted to open up every window in the house and just air it out.

I will wait. In another four days it will be even warmer, and I can then air out the house without freezing. In fact, it promises to be in the sixties. Sixties!

I sat in one of our patio chairs, so recently swept clear of snow and just appreciated the fact that I was outside. I watched the dog, I listened to the birds, and I admired the sunlight. I felt as if I were in a French movie. I expected to see subtitles rolling across the bottom of my vision at any point. I waited for the voice of the narrator to begin.

It was only about ten minutes, total, but it worked wonders on my mood.