The Seeking Daddy Project Day 13: Breaking through the ice.

Snow is many things:  it's inconvenient, it's cold, it's dangerous.  It's also beautiful and reminds me of my childhood, of long winter days spent sliding down the hill in our backyard, of warmth and hot chocolate and time with family.

But what I love most about snow is that it tends to make everything go quiet.

Raleigh is closed down today.  When Lottie and I went out earlier this morning, she skated back and forth across our tiny yard, her barely 6 pound body not able to break through enough to give her balance.  I had to stamp out a circle in the ice for her to be able to get the necessary traction to do her business.

It started snowing pretty steadily again about two hours ago.  When I took Lottie out for her afternoon constitutional, snow evenly falling all around us, the quiet hugged me like an old, familiar friend.

These days, I feel like there's so much noise - well meaning noise, but noise nonetheless - from friends, family, and everyone around me.  I can't get a word in edgewise.

You should go back to church!

You shouldn't care so much about the past.

You should do this or that or this and that to further your writing career.

Why aren't you doing it?!

Why are you letting this stuff get you down?!

Except, of course, from God.  From God, I hear nothing.

After Lottie finished, she wanted to go back inside immediately because she was cold (and, I suspect, she kind of hates her coat).  But I didn't.  All I wanted to do was stay outside.

So I put her back in the house, pulled on the boots I got to tramp around the Renaissance Festival two years ago, turned on some music, and went back outside.

I walked up and down the sidewalk as the snow fell around me, breathing the cold air in deeply and relishing every moment of the snowy hush.  I traced a pattern along the sidewalk in my subdivision, stopping occasionally to take pictures or to let the lyrics that were playing sink in.  I walked until my hair was soaking wet; until the snowflakes were sticking to my eyelashes and I could barely see.

A tree with tiny buds, now frozen over before they could bloom.

Up and down I walked, all by myself, enjoying just a little bit those moments when I had to stomp down hard to keep my footing firm.  It felt like a decision every time - a decision to keep walking.

I was breaking through the ice.