By SALLIE SATTERTHWAITE
sallies@juno.com

Come in, come in! Close the door — it's cold out there.

Come stand by the fire. You're just in time to watch the sunset. This is my favorite moment of the day, the time of day I most appreciate this west-facing glass wall bringing in the outdoors. Like a beautiful mural, isn't it? No, much better, really: the world outside is always on the move.

Trees sway, leaves fall, birds come and go from the feeders all day. Why, even on still days, the light changes as the day ebbs, clouds throw patterns — there's always movement.

Don't you love winter in Georgia? I do, I really do. I love the way the sky looks when dark clouds bank up on one side and the low slant of the sun burnishes the earth. I love winter colors: tawny grasses, red-leather leaves all frosted, tree trunks shiny black after a rain. Azure skies, another winter blessing, the perfect backdrop for a display of the architecture of trees, the strength of their trunks and the lace of their twigs.

These wonders are cloaked when the trees are in leaf. Walking, sometimes we'll spot a bird's nest in a shrub within arm's reach. While its owner built it last spring, it was hidden from view, invisible as she guarded her eggs, hatched and fed her brood, darted in and out of the bush a hundred times a day. And we were none the wiser.

And a winter full moon — oh my! Several hours after last month's eclipse, I woke to see white light in shards on the floor, scattered by branches raking the sky. Summer moonlight is ethereal; winter's is brittle as ice.

Well, all right, I like every season, but I have a special fondness for weather that begs for steaming soup and a fire in the stove. Don't you love to linger under a thick down comforter on a chilly morning? I don't miss warm weather tasks like watering and deadheading flowers, or sweeping decks and walkways as we have to in the fall. I certainly don't miss the chiggers and no-seeums that make garden work miserable.

Sweatshirts suit me better than tank tops, and I look better in jeans than in shorts. You say you hadn't noticed the ponds behind the house before? Another plus for winter: when the leaves are off the trees, we can see the glint of sunlight on the water, especially when the ducks are splashing.

I guess it sounds Pollyanna-ish, but I don't even mind gray days when the trees bow and the eaves are fringed with ice. Sure, I get tired of the cold. The older I get, the colder I get, and the more grateful that someone invented the electric blanket! But I relish the comfort of the stove, the rain sluicing down the glass, the bushes all glassy.

I love the sense of well-being, gratitude that we don't have to go anywhere. (That's the big difference, of course: We don't have to go anywhere. If working at home or retiring early has no other argument, there's a strong one in simply being able to stay in the place you love best. I hope the trends toward even more telecommuting are here to stay.)

There, the water's hot; let me find a tea bag. Mind the cat. Wouldn't be the first time someone tripped over him there. Old Peach has come full circle. When we first brought him home nearly 20 years ago, he was a mere puff ball, the color of pale spun gold, as wide as he was tall.

He'd sit in front of the Franklin stove, like many a baby stubbornly determined to stay awake. We'd watch him wobble from side to side as he started to doze, until he plopped over, sound asleep. He spends most of his time now there in front of the gas logs, toasting first one side and then the other, eventually sagging like a soft candle and falling asleep on the warm tiles. After we shut it off at night, he makes one more trip to the food dish in Dave's shop, then dodders into our room and curls up in a basket with a pillow in it.

Lately he's taken to caterwauling in the wee hours: “Er-wow, wow, wow! Ow, wow, row.” A paperback book lobbed from a night table hushes him. He's deaf, you see, and doesn't hear our reassurances. I suspect he wakes up cold or confused, doesn't know where he is. They say that's common in old cats, night wailing. Whatever the cause, it's costing us sleep.

Look. Look at that painted sky. I make it a point to stop and watch the sun set — there are only so many sunsets in a lifetime. Used to dread winter, thought it the old age of the year and a reminder of my own mortality. But then the days begin to lengthen, and the sunsets are spaced further apart, and I sit down to write in full confidence that there will be another, and another.

I'm glad you were here to share this one.

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