We’ve lived here for a week. It feels like our house although it doesn’t yet feel like home.

Late last week it snowed. A lot. I watched it come down, my response to this first snowfall as a permanent resident of this winter town nothing less than total glee. I love snow like no one else I know.

I have two boys who have been sick on and off since we arrived (I suspect their tummies react to stress like my back does, which is to say angrily) and a dog who appears to be settling in all right, although for the first few days he was velcroed to us like a shadow, desperate to make sure he wasn’t left behind in this strange new place.

But he, too, likes the snow. We’ve been walking, up and down streets, exploring this strange new place. There are jack rabbits on the streets and at night they bound ahead of us, surprising me. I’m not used to them – deer yes, large rabbits no. Surely nothing with that much bounce and determination could be a bunny, I think, but they are, their ears and large hind legs coming clear under the street lights.

We’re the last community at the western-most edge of the city—the city limit sign is right around the corner—and when we head out from home it’s just a couple of turns and a short stretch of road before we get to the outer edge. That’s my favourite thing so far. We round a bend in the road and there before us are mountains as far as the eye can see – right to left, the whole horizon is filled with snow-covered crags. It’s as though you can see the whole of the Canadian Rockies right there outside our doorstep. My breath catches every time. I will never tire of it.

Tonight I was coming home from the grocery store at sunset and it looked like the mountains were on fire. Large swaths of pink and blue, with one peak a fiery gold. I chased the sunset – driving up and down streets looking for the best view. No photo I took did it justice. I could have stayed out there forever watching the sun rise and fall, rise and fall, leaving the mountains alight.

We don’t yet have our stuff (though we bought a new bed, and thank goodness). Apparently the rest may arrive tomorrow and we’ll finally be able to settle in. I’ve been living on anxiety and adventure, swinging from one to the next like a monkey on a vine. I’m looking forward to less of the former and more of the latter. I’m looking forward to furniture and a shorter to-do-to-get-settled-in list. I’m looking forward to tromping through snow and chasing more sunsets.

Chasing sunsets is good for the soul.

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