Winter

It is cold, yes, but it is also beautiful. Sunshine and icicles are a fine combination, but moonshine and icicles are brilliant. The other night the house was dark and I walked upstairs in that darkness and reached the top and looked up and out the window near the landing and there was the moon, and there was a collection of icicles glistening in the moonlight. This was just before I went to bed, which is when monsters are most active, and I looked at the icicles and thought, "Fangs. Magnificent fangs." And so I went to bed thinking of monsters and fangs but I slept very well and the dreams I dreamed were concocted of good things. This morning I got up and the house was dark and I walked down the hallway and paused at the window near the top of the stairs and looked out at the icicles and thought, "Teeth! Long, pointy, brittle teeth!" And I came downstairs and got my keys and went to the dentist. I am back from the dentist and the sun is shining on our neighbors' icicles and I can't seem to stop staring at them. They do not look like fangs. They are beautiful and surreal and they make me glad, so very glad, to be a creature of winter.