The first snow is always a novelty. The chill. Finding your winter coat. Having an excuse for tea and cookies in the afternoon. New snow makes me think of a clean slate. A new, crisp, white page to start the year over again on. Fall just feels like it is waiting for something to happen. The impending leaves, their darkening. The whole landscape is waiting to be covered in snow and you can feel that anticipation in the air. My mother-in-law needs this snow. Perhaps it'll begin to whiten the dark grief she's been shrouded in. Someone was reminding me how it used to be when someone died that you bought a dark suit or dress when your spouse died and you wore it every day for a year. Literally, every day. She said by the end of it you were so sick of the clothes, you threw them away, and with them you threw away your grief. What a metaphor. The physicallity of it.