There’s an aliveness out there in this brilliant, snow-filled, zero degree morning. Aliveness, and yet a beautiful solitude that isn’t eerie, and definitely not lonely. The calm after the storm, bolstered by sunshine. Certain weather combinations seem to support my feeling of well-being as far as silence, solitude and simplicity. I say even as I’ve been listening, for the past half hour, to the drone of the beep-beep of a plow truck clearing the snow from the library parking lot across the street.