Of the half dozen on-line journals I read, three come out of the Washington, D.C. area, and all three of those journallers wrote about the wallop (for Washington) of snow they got on Tuesday -- nearly a foot, I think. It made for treacherous travel, early dismissals or late arrivals, neighborhood bonding, and reflective moments spent at the kitchen window.

As I write, there is little snow on the ground here in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Here and there under a fir tree or beside a yew hedge you'll find a dollop of crusted-over stuff that looks more like freezer frost than something for fashioning a snowman. Even the low mountains that ring this valley are brown.

I've been walking again, part of my effort to get back to where I once belonged, physically. Since Monday I've walked Woodridge every day -- up Bradley, loop around the Millwood cul-de-sac, right on Reichert to Verona, left on Brian to Bradley again. That takes about twenty minutes. Sometimes I do it twice, sometimes I loop around Finch, which gives me one more little hill. 

Afterward, I cool down with a stroll across the field behind my house.The church that owns the field has placed a gazebo at the edge of the woods where there will someday be a prayer garden. The railing of the gazebo is the perfect ballet barre height -- I stretch, breathe, and sit for while to listen to the bird calls and the rustling leaves. It's a good way to start the day, or to end it.

The absence of snow makes it easy to check my garden for new green -- it's there, in the smooth flat ovals of daffodil shoots and the swirly beginnings of the few tulips I have. This is the year, I promise myself, that there really will be a garden, tended and shaped all summer instead of ignored after the first blaze of daffodils is gone. We shall see.