early morning walk

Since it is now dark when Biker Buddy comes home from work and because we are all so busy right now, I've started walking early in the morning--just a part of my daily walk to get it over with. But when I walked this morning, there was a certain scent in the air, the smell of freshness and snow. It woke me right up and made me feel really alive. It was still dark, but I could feel little light snowflakes hitting my face. The puddles from all that rain we've been getting were frozen solid. I walked for 19 minutes and as I walked, the black sky turned inky blue and bit by bit, lightened a little. I began to be able to distinguish trees and the details of houses: shutter slats, brickwork. At one point, the sky reached a shade of blue that almost looked like the blue of a clear blue summer day, but I knew it wasn't, because of the snow. Then it lightened a little more and the grey became more evident. It was a quiet morning, no birds singing, but it was right at the time people were leaving for work and I had to keep running behind cars sitting in their driveways with their engines running and lights on--one even had their back-up lights on. I was both relieved and sad to get home and go inside where the air doesn't have that startling smell of snow.