just waiting....and watching

I think it may finally snow

     Anywhere from 6 to 20 inches, depending on the forecast and the direction the storm tracks.
     I was just outside a few minutes ago, listening.
     Listening to a snowstorm at night is very cool.
     You can hear the flakes hitting the ground.  But it's what you can't hear that is amazing.  Not as many cars, no people, no airplanes......it was just drop dead quiet out on the front porch.
     Sure, in the distance there was a train horn, but this is Rochelle.  One car went down Flagg Road, but it was going very slowly, and very quietly.
     In the past during snows I have put on my shearling coat and just gone out into the woods behind my old house, or even just under the pine trees in the back yard, and listened to the snow fall.  It is very soothing to the soul.
     When I was a kid growing up in Chicago I loved hearing the sound snow shovels made on the sidewalks, the scrape, scrape, scrape that often came in a type of rhythm.
     Tomorrow the plows will be out, and the annoying mosquito sounding snowmobiles will be speeding across the yards, people will fire up their snow blowers.  The silence will be broken.
     I always think of Robert Frost:  The woods are lovely, dark and deep; but I have miles to go before I sleep.
     I too, have miles to go before I sleep.
     In the meantime, I think I'll go back out onto the porch.