Of sand traps and mattresses and not

Since I tromped across our yard in delight last week, the snow is melting differently than it would have. The yard looks like the negative image of a golf course -- one where the greens keeper went mad and added little sand traps across the entire fairway as revenge for the sand that inept golfers had tossed up onto his finely manicured green.

Strange how our perceptions can change from moment to moment. I would have thought it would be based on some great truth within. . . and it may well be. But today, the deep green grass simply does not look right peering through the holes in the snow. It feels unnatural now, not the holes, although they should, but the green of the grass. Yet, just the week before Thanksgiving that same green was the most normal thing in the world.

I have become used to the thick blanket of snow across my neighborhood. The decks looked as if covered them with a custom fit high quality mattress; the roofs as if they had been painted with the purest of whites. The contrast of the green and brown houses with the white roofs against the gray or blues skies still draws my attention and it feels right, more right than before. I think we have all underestimated the value of contrast, of differences. . . and I laugh at myself as I write the word differences because at this moment I want all roofs the same: snow covered.

Snow covered roofs aside, different can be a good thing. . . it may just take you a while to realize just how good it can be. . . or when different is not a great thing. There are times when either can be right, but you have to make that determination yourself. I hope you make it sooner than I did, or at least embraced it sooner.