Now we are Six.

This is a special kind of snow. It lies untrod upon across the yard like an animal’s coat, rather than a blanket. It seems to have grown out from the land rather than having been laid down from above. Soft, almost furry, there is no sense of warmth at all.

The air is crystalline. Floating around the low single digits, if not below, the air temperature will not allow for any humidity. Yet the other night we had flurries. Fog, the radio suggested, out here, closest to the ocean’s mediating embrace.

Fog at six. Fog at four. Fog at two. Fog at nothing. There is no fog when it is this cold. Not for very long, at least, and it changes to flurries. What comes down is the lightest precipitation one could dream. It barely falls at all, but swirls up and around, and down and back. Tiny, individual snowflakes, each with their own agenda, their own chaotic purpose.
The landscape of yesterday and last week, once a collection of ice and snow patches that had been covered once and never melted, is softened again. It can be swept away with a broom, or blown with one’s mouth. Off the front steps and the rear window and sideviews.

There are no footprints on this snow. Days of sledding and romping and racing and snow creatures were melted away two weeks ago. The next round of winter, the real coming of the season from the second of our weekend blizzards, grew this white coat and brought the banishing cold of this weekend.

It was not without warning. Looking through images of last year at this time, the snow heights are higher. That brutal year encased us, though, getting us used to how very cold it would be. We were lulled this year. El Nino, the child, suggested we might go the whole three months without a real sense of cold. Berries hung on the privet still. Radiant light green grass still grew on dewy banks. Winter was not happening. We could get through this easily this time. As if we had earned a respite.

Winter is to be expected. Here, it will be cold. We know this when we chose to make a home here. We count ourselves lucky when things go well, the warm days, the sunshine, the green fields to amble through. We congratulate ourselves when spring comes and we made it through yet again. We believe warmth is normal.

The beach parking lot looks out. The blue of the sky is one complete shade, the blue of the water a deeper one. Fewer cars are out even though the air is brilliantly clear. The horizon stretches out, cloudless. Whitecaps hit the outer beach, which hangs on by a thread. It is too thin. Is it high tide or low right now? Washovers, spillovers are not singular events, it seems now. It is not so much a breach to envision but a total disappearance of the sand. It is in motion, below the surface. In the spring it will show up elsewhere. The wind buffets the few vehicles here. It has blown the windshield clear of the clean, silty snow. A coffee cup and a running engine keep zero at bay for humans. Few have ventured forth. It is blindingly cold out. Even the faintest breeze is like a knife.

That spring will come, we know. That is a different time. In February, now, it can get colder. This is when we have been reminded, at last. A snow shovel. A parka. A pair of boots. A load of firewood. We have prepared, we think. This time of year reminds us how precarious we truly are. No other time of year can we walk outside and die. It is not the snow. It is the cold.

We know the natural state of things, the original state of the universe. It is to be different from what we would like. It is within the distance between planets. Cold is the natural state. Warmth is the anomaly. What we see at six is closer to the truth. This is not a season. This is as it truly is. This could be the best to ever expect. At six.