A streetlamp stood silent vigil on the corner half a block from my house.  My breath fogged the window as I watched fat snowflakes flutter in and out of the yellow light on their way to the ground. The pristine snow quilted the earth in a white robe of silence. For a time, the world would be coated in a veneer of calm.  It would wake up soon. The soft blanket of soft powder would become brown frozen sludge, turning the winter wonderland grey and depressing.

In the fall, at Grandpa's house.

The trees are shedding their summer coats, the green and gold remnants strewn over damp grass. Pensioners curse, dreading the raking and bagging to come. But children kick the leaves about, their minds filled with the anticipation of the holidays on the horizon—no school, trick-or-treating, softly blinking red and green lights, cakes, pies, turkeys, and presents under the tree. Maple and cherry wood smoke wafts on a gentle October breeze, billowing softly from chimneys here and there. It’s not as cold as it will be, but tell that to the brittle-boned old folks sitting under homemade quilts drinking hot tea to whom warmth is a commodity more precious than gold.