Between Winters
It rained on Christmas Eve.
And on Christmas Day.
Rain. At 9,318 feet.
In my twenty years of living here, I don’t know that I’ve ever experienced that. Snow, yes. Cold, definitely. But rain on Christmas felt unsettling in a way I couldn’t quite name.
Melissa, my best friend, tells me she remembers a rainy Christmas once. I believe her. But it still felt wrong somehow, like the mountain itself was shrugging and saying, not this year.
As of January 3rd, our ski area still hasn’t opened. Kendall sits quietly. The break, three full weeks for Silverton Public School kids, has felt especially long for working parents in this town. The usual rhythms haven’t shown up the way we expect them to.
Instead, we’ve been improvising.
Ice skating has become a surprise bright spot—thank goodness we finally have a Parks and Rec director who genuinely loves the ice (and yes, that’s my husband). There’s been crafting at the table, long evenings in our new-to-us hot tub (a true Christmas blessing), and more stillness than motion.
And then there were the photos.
Alida found one of our old phones, charged it up, and suddenly we were looking at images from before 2018—before the house renovation, before so much changed. Photos from winters that were huge. Snow piled high. Deep, quiet cold. The kind of winters that felt endless.
I keep telling myself, and everyone here keeps saying, the snow will come.
I hope it does.
But in the meantime, this strange pause has created space. Unexpectedly reflective space.
As January unfolds, I’m noticing that I don’t feel drawn to resolutions. They’ve never really resonated with me anyway. Instead, I’m paying attention to what’s been quietly stirring during these weeks of waiting—what keeps knocking at the door of my thoughts.
For years now, I’ve been hearing the same questions from parents. The same worries. The same hesitation, the same longing for clarity.
Questions that don’t need louder answers—just steadier ones.
So rather than rushing forward, I’m letting this quiet energy guide me. Turning inward before turning outward. Gathering what I know, what I’ve lived, what I’ve watched families navigate again and again.
I’m not ready to say everything yet.
But I am ready to say this:
Something is forming.
And like the snow we’re all waiting for, I trust it will arrive when it’s meant to.
