Wrapping my heart and home in white...not cold and colorless after all

For those of you who aren't aware, my home is less than a mile from the Canadian border. Winter is rough around here with current temperatures running anywhere from below zero to about plus five, as it is this afternoon.

A couple of days ago, I bundled up and braved the cold to run some long put-off errands. I remember that as I was walking to the garage it struck me that my whole world has been white for months. The roof of my home and my neighbors' is piled high with white. Of course, all of the yards are blanketed in white where just a few months ago you could see green lawns and a profusion of flower plantings in every color of the rainbow. I thought to myself that white certainly was a cold and unfriendly color as I pulled the collar of my coat up around my cold ears.

That evening, all tucked into my warm home and covered with my favorite blanket, Camille, my white kitty, jumped onto the sofa to snuggle with me as she does most times when the twinkle of day turns into the dark quiet of night. Camille certainly isn't cold. In fact, she is all soft and cuddly and warm and cozy. As I was thinking about her and enjoying the warmth of her body, I realized that what I initially thought was a cold color, really wasn't so cold after all and that white could not only be warm, it could also be very pretty and...useful.

My mind drifted off to remember the snow-white Forgotten Cookies that I would bake often for my boys. Those little goodies with their lighter-than-air texture, piled high on a plate looking like tiny clouds, were a favorite in my then filled nest. I can still see my sons walking through the back door piling books on the kitchen table after school. Next they'd fill a glass to the brim with milk (another white blessing) just before grabbing as many of the cookies as their hands could carry.

I warmed myself by traveling back to hot summer days when my perennial Sweet Peas would wind in and out of the backyard fence. Their velvety texture and pristine beauty is always remarkable. Each fall the lovely blossoms fade and die leaving in their wake a profusion of seed pods. Basket in hand I carefully collect my fall bounty in order to gift friends and family with the bounty left behind by the memory of summer and the promise of spring to come.

Just this afternoon a package arrived with its contents wrapped carefully in crisp, white tissue paper. Ordinarily, the tissue would be placed aside quickly in order for me to admire my goodies. Not today. I really looked at the tissue with its numerous creases and folds. The tissue reminded me a little of whipping cream or maybe an iceberg, both lovely in their own right.

Sitting here at my kitchen table, I see the sun streaming through the white lace curtains in my dining room leaving intricate patterns to dance on the walls, table, chairs and floor. A little bit of decoration added by Mother Nature to an already lovely room.

Tucked away in a corner of my living room there sits a sweet and soft feather tree exactly where I placed it just before the holidays. For one reason or another, I can't bear to pack it away. So, there it is, looking adorable, bringing a smile to my face each and every time I pass by.

With all of these white pretties prancing around in my head, I now see that white isn't the cold and chilly color I originally thought a few days ago on my way to the garage. To be sure, I live with a lot of white for a very long time in my neck of the woods. Snow will often appear at the end of October and remain on the ground until sometime around the end of April. But now I have a new appreciation for what some call a colorless color. White is the color of snow and of icebergs, but it also graces my garden in the summer, the coat of a little cat I truly love, my holiday feather tree, lace curtains that produce dancing patterns on dining room walls and of tissue that protects treasures that arrive in boxes from far away.