I can’t seem to get up from bed before 1 pm on account of my infection, but the snow didn’t wait. It began even before the forecasters predicted, covering the ground by 10.

“Where are you going?” says my housemate as I pull up a pair of boots and drape a red jacket over a bathrobe over pajamas.

“I want to get the trash barrel and the paper bin on top of the driveway before they get filled up with snow.”

“Wonder woman,” she grumbles, even though she’s the wonder woman, shoveling the first part of the front path on her still weak leg.

Did it, made sure birds had feed, back to bed. So it’s been for 7 days. But in the afternoon, when energy rebounds a bit, I put the boots back on (this time over clothes) and shovel front and a little back for about 10-15 minutes, then said enough. The essential paths are the ones up front and those leading to 3 birdfeeders in back, which will probably have to wait till tomorrow.

If you don’t live in an area like mine, with four full seasons making love to woods and trails, it’s hard to understand the joy of this first snow. Aussie comes in, eyes shining, black fur full of snow, reminding me of the first time it snowed here after we got her from a shelter that got her from Houston, Texas. A new world had opened up to all her senses. She sniffed eagerly and experimented with shaking the snow off her fur, looking down at it, amazed. If I was healthy, I’d walk her in the snow because she loves it so much.

You pick up the red snow shovel for the first time in the season, jacket, scarf, and gloves on, and it’s like your first dance ever.  Nature strolls confidently over from across the gym floor and invites you to dance, and if you were like me, a typical wallflower for many years, you open your eyes in astonishment: Me?

Yes, you, the cold seems to say, stroking my cheeks and laughing at the wonder in my eyes. I’m going to be 76 in a few days, and each time is like the first time, my first dance of the winter. It doesn’t get tiresome. You angle the shovel—not too deep, not too shallow—and get your groove back, like remembering which hand to put on the guy’s shoulder, which hand holds his own. You move forward, emptying the shovel full of snow first in one direction, then another, and moving, always moving. And some part of you remembers this old, old waltz from before Stonehenge, when people huddled around cave fires for warmth. That dance was a lot harder than mine, but its traces are there in the feet curling in the freeze, the hands pallid inside gloves.

A heated house to return to takes the fear away of whether you’ll stay warm throughout the winter, even as the Inbox fills with reminders for donations to help families with no homes, no warmth, no money. People spending nights in tents probably don’t appreciate this first snow as I do.

Each year I start a brand-new relationship with this thing called winter. Today, I made this promise: This time I’ll appreciate you more. This time I’ll remind myself again and again how unique you are here in New England, how gorgeously clothed. This time, unlike with other neglectful relationships in the past, I’m really paying attention.

Meantime, I’m fascinated by a week of not feeling driven. When did this happen to me before? When I’m sick, I tend to sleep a lot (my favorite medicine), and sporadically get up, sit in front of the computer, feeling the urge to do something, write something, email someone. The words Do something haunt me even when I’m ill.

This particular infection is different. I’ve been very sick physically, and exhausted, and find myself sitting down just looking at a wall or at the living room, doing nothing. Very little impetus to even watch TV or read. And often I shut my eyes and think to myself: So, this is what it is to just breathe and be, no scratching in the mind, no reminders, no but but but like a sputtering parrot. As if, in a rare occasion, life took me in its embrace and said: Yes, this is what it’s like to just sit there, enjoy the quiet, the warmth, the lack of inclination to make changes, have an impact, be important. And you know something? I love you just like this!

“Really?” I ask. “I’m good for nothing, can’t even walk my dog.”

“Really,” life tells me.

Physically it’s been a tough time, but in other ways—heaven.