Moonlight Madness

There is something magical about moonlight in the winter. As a child, I remember trudging up the hill with my brothers, sled in tow, only to see just how far you can get. Repeat. If we were lucky enough to have the Northern Lights make an appearance we'd recline on the hill and enjoy the show. This was best done on a mild winter night, moonlight our only illumination, and capped off with hot chocolate with mini marshmallows when we finally exhausted ourselves and came back to the house. My mother always made our hot chocolate from scratch. No canned mixes for us. This is hands down one of the best memories of my childhood. Something I hold sacred and wish for my niece and nephew and any children I may be blessed with in the future to experience.

As a child we often had wickedly snowy winters. Something I took for granted. Much as regular Northern Light shows. (Now, I have to go further north to watch them - haven't seen them here in years.) This is the first winter where we've had crazy snow accumulation in a long time. And while the snow creates an added burden to daily life, it brings me back to the innocence of childhood.

As an adult who holds a full time job, I'm often not home before daylight is lost. Last night, after doing my chores by yard light, as I settled down to play flying squirrel with the dogs I looked around. Really looked around. Not just going through the motions. And I realized just how blessed I was. The moon was bright, reflecting off the snow, creating an eerie almost permanent dusk. I noticed how I could see for quite some distance. I noticed how stunning the snow covered trees and fences looked. And it occurred to me that it was light enough that I could easily see down the road.

Zipping into the house I added two flashing reflective pieces to my Carhart jacket, put the reflective collars and leashes on the dogs and made my way down the driveway. It was wonderful! The dogs and I went striding down the road. The only sounds the crunching and squeaking of the snow under my boots. I loved how the dogs tails all curled over their backs and doggy grins covered their faces.

It made me understand just how much I miss our dog walks or runs in the winter. I came back and felt so happy, so at peace, so zen that I've pledged to do this each and every day/night it's safe to.