52 Photos ~ All dressed up

I left the corporate world at the start of summer in 1992. Tossed the pantyhose (a word that makes me shudder) in the bin, donated the dressy slacks and office-appropriate tops, put on a pair of jeans, and never looked back.

As I wrote that paragraph, I thought of what happened next, the adventures we had, but that is a story for another day. A sunny summer one.

Today is a snowy day. A snow day. A stay-at-home-from school day. The dog and cats and I are clustered around the fire, and H is luxuriating in a day of no homework and no reason to get out of bed before 11 am.

I woke up at 4 this morning with snow on my mind, anxious to read the news from Antarctica (they will finish tomorrow!) and curious to see how much snow had fallen while we slept. It turns out that not much had, and I thought our hopes of a snow day were dashed. Eventually, I fell asleep again, to be woken by the phone call from school at 5.45.

The inches fell between that call and the time I trudged out to the barn, swaddled in my new down jacket (bright red so you can’t possibly lose me in a blizzard), hat with ear flaps, insulated gloves and boots.

It’s falling still. The only sounds I hear are the ticking of the stove, the dog’s content groans, and the chirping of the birds at the feeder outside the living room window.

The birds wait in the trees on the edge of the woods near our house, stacked up like circling aircraft waiting for the air traffic control tower to give them the signal to land. They’re dressed in shades of whites, browns, greys and ochres. Some wear black caps.

They perch briefly at the feeder, the swirling snow coming down so thickly between them and me and the window that they seem to me to be in a very old photograph, faded and distant, recalling a memory just on the tip of my tongue.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This photo and post are in response to this week’s theme for the 52 Photos Project. You should participate, too! Read about how it works here. You can see a gallery of everyone’s photos for this week’s theme here. To see a list of all my blog posts for this project, go here.