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I’ve always loved the rain. Down to the core of me I love what it does, how it feels, and the way it sounds. Rain gives reason to my love of stillness, grants purpose to my preference of solitude, and cultivates a womb in which I can live both productively and peacefully.

I love that rain makes things more magical and unexpected: I drive slower, I connect with the depth of the space I’m in, I hear the echoes of that which it strikes, and while others retreat from it, I escape with it. Rain is my companion.

Rain and sun are all I have ever experienced. Decembers on the coast of California yield sandal weather, beach picnics, and fresh cracked crab on the pier. When the rain flutters past, you can see the ocean come alive, the smoke come from chimneys, and the occasional couple choose to stand and embrace in it (my husband and I were that couple when we were dating. I think we should be again…) Rain and Sun became my routine.

Until now.

Until now I have never known true seasons. Seasons were lost in an endless summer year after year and I always have craved a little bit more. A few more opportunities to shift gears, a chance to reflect on the joy that moment of time held and welcome the moment ahead.

When “the snow” first started to fall, I was like a child. Lit up inside and ecstatic at the sight. While I photographed and debated what was and wasn’t snow and learned terms of what a dusting vs. snow is, I marveled at it. Thirty one and I felt like I was five learning new terms, calling things by the wrong name not knowing I was wrong while others would have thought it was cute (had I been five). It was magic! I stood in my window, tuned out Sesame Street, and tuned into the sound of snow: silence.

And while everyone else was still, I came alive! I ran up the stairs to pull out the “snow gear.” I draped the babes in “long johns” and “snow bibs” and mittens and “snow boots.” The street was hushed, there was no pavement in sight, the trees were wrapped in winter white and we were alive with noise in a quiet world of solitude. It was there I said, “sweet dreams” to one season and, “good morning” to another. With my heart on fire, my mind capturing this moment for all time in the deepest place of my heart, I felt that happiness that comes with new experience embrace me…again.