mornings

I'm not a winter child. I love the season as much as one can when living in negative thirty degree temperatures. It's not to say that I don't like it, but in Minnesota, the world is somewhat frozen, and come December, chilly is and understatement. I love winter up until January second...then the magic of the season is gone and I'm ready for the snow to turn into slush.



Yesterday we had our first frost. The world was covered in a thin sheet of sparkling white ice and the air tasted like snow. I threw on a sweatshirt and stepped outside, breathing in the world. My fingers were numb as I pressed the shutter and my toes were cold. It was quiet and still as my feet crunched on the fragile ground and my breath came out in frosty whirls that reminded me winter was not far away.



The trees had dropped most of their leaves and lay on the ground, gold and red covered in shimmering white. There are still many days of fall ahead, but as the season looms to a close, with winter just in sight, I'm ready for it. I'm ready to enjoy the last month or so of autumn, these fleeting golden days of bonfires and hot apple cider steaming and pumpkin patch journeys and the last few leaves still to fall.



However...the thought of cozy mornings, staring out the window at a world thick with a blanket of snow while sipping a mug of steaming chai, doesn't sound so bad to me. Hot oatmeal, cooked overnight with apples and cinnamon, for breakfast, woolen socks, and mittens covering the littles fingers, all red with cold. Cheeks flushed and eyes bright as they make snowmen or angels or even have a snowball fight. And then there's the promise of days spent making cookies, the weekend when we put up the lights, and the day we go downtown. Thick white flakes falling and trees covered in frost, Christmas music, roaring fires, and hours spent with family, tucked inside warm houses with people I love so very much.



It sounds contradictory, but secretly, I'm excited for winter to come. And all because of a first frost.