When I woke yesterday I thought it would be another exercise-in-the-house day, but by mid-afternoon, I could see black pavement on my street and beyond.

Whether it was due to the relatively warm pavement temperature of mid-March or my county’s new, hard-won facility with snow removal, the roads were clear and I could walk through winter unimpeded.

This was a gift. I didn’t have to look down at my feet, dodging snow, slush or ice. I could look at trees sagging with the white stuff, at snow heaped on buds near to blossoming.

For a moment I was in an alternative universe, one stripped of color, where spring comes not in yellow, pink and purple, but in parchment, eggshell and alabaster.

It was a window on winter, before it goes away.