This morning began with an early squall—nothing fierce, just enough wind and wandering snow to slow the traffic on the county road and feed the topic for talk to those who gathered at the shop for coffee. People lingered longer than usual, warming their hands around paper cups, trading stories, letting the storm’s soft insistence create a kind of fellowship. Snow has a way of stitching people together, even for a moment.

Out on the wide waters, the last clusters of geese keep their vigil. Each day, ice draws in closer—its thin skin tightening, as if the season is gently persuading them to move on. Yet they stay, gathered shoulder to wing, riding the narrowing space with a patience I can only admire.

In the cedars, a squirrel made its presence known—not by chatter but by the small avalanches it released with every leap. Snow fell in dollops from the branches, startling the quiet, catching the light in brief flutters before settling into the drift below.

And then there was the oak leaf, brown as old parchment, that somehow held fast through storms and freezes. Today, it finally let go. Instead of dropping straight to the earth, it was lifted by a sudden updraft—caught, carried, almost celebrated as it spiraled upward into a current large enough to bear it beyond sight. Even in letting go, the world can surprise us.

These days deepen into December quickly now. Darkness arrives early, crossing the threshold before many of us are ready. Yet as the valley settles beneath the night snow and the drumlins wrap close around us like gentle fleece, a great silence rises—the kind you can hear only when you pause long enough to receive it.

In that quiet, blessings announce themselves in small ways. A warm room after cold air. A stranger’s smile in the parking lot. The slow encircling trust of geese on an icy lake. A stray oak leaf borne upward instead of down. Joy is not always loud; often it waits for us in the hush, asking only that we slow our pace and listen.