I’ve decided that this spring I might be willing and ready to play outdoor volleyball again, in part for the mental health benefits it offers. I’ve emailed my former teammates to see if any of them are interested, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that some of them might be available.

A couple of my teammates played outdoors last fall, and the report I heard after the first couple weeks was that the league was was relatively good about mask wearing and social distancing from other teams and on the sidelines. Volleyball is one of those sports where there you do end up in close proximity to your teammates and some competitors, and some contact with teammates can happen as you’re chasing after a ball and trying not to knock each other down. So it’s not without risk. But it’s also not basketball, where it can’t be played without automatically coming into contact with everyone else on the court. And being outdoors definitely helps lower the risks of spreading disease.

How are you thinking about risk management as we move into year #2 of COVID? Will you continue to stay home and isolated? Were you never paying attention to those recommendations to begin with?

I know, I know. It’s graffiti. I’m not supposed to appreciate it. And, yet, it made me smile, hypocrite that I am.

Scenes from my walk to the store earlier today:

With apologies to my northern readers, I thought I’d share some of my photos from walking around this weekend, since our snowstorm gave us no accumulation today.

I first saw snowdrops in the week after Christmas. They’re growing in huge clumps around the grounds of the Quaker meetinghouse.

Georgetown continues to be full of winter jasmine.

It was a lovely sunset this evening over the Potomac River. The Georgetown Waterfront Park is one of my favorite urban reclamation projects in D.C. For decades, it was an inaccessible parking lot, used more by tourists than by locals. But for nearly ten years now, it’s routinely been filled with people enjoying the outdoors, including the river stairs where I took these shots.

Here are some of the snow people I saw today:

The girl who lives next door built the first snow person I saw. Her family owns the art gallery, and her use of cherry tomatoes indicates a good understanding of color.

The farmers market is using their snow person as an extra employee to direct traffic. Note the correct use of a mask (neither carrot nose nor corncob pipe are visible).

Trader Joe’s had two snow people. I’m calling the larger one, Trader Snow.

And his younger brother, Little Trader Snow.

You’ll be seeing some more of my snowy stroll around D.C. through the week.

We’re expecting snow on Sunday — our first real accumulation in two years. The forecast keeps fluctuating for how much we’re going to get (the current forecast is hovering around four inches, but no one is ruling out a foot, as of yet), but they’ve all agreed snow will stick to the ground in some quantity.

I am excited; I am, after all, a New England girl, and it’s hard to believe winter is here if snow never falls.

Living in a city, the day of snowfall is a magical thing. The number of cars on the road drops significantly (that’s actually what the first couple weeks of the pandemic reminded me of, because of how much traffic was reduced), and it actually gets quiet. Anyone who is afraid of getting wet or freezing stays indoors, leaving the outside world for those who find winter precipitation joyful. And we do flock out, no matter the hour, drawn by the glitter falling from the sky.

Admittedly, the days after snowfall is less joyful, with far too sidewalks shoveled and snow on the side of the road turning yellow and grey by degrees.

But for the first 24 hours, we can hold on to the beauty. And maybe this year, this winter, that’s enough.