I'm Thankful. Yes, I am.

A chill is in the air here in Berkeley, where I live. The sky is a little darker each morning when I wake. My umbrella stays in my backpack, day and night, just in case. The white clouds of fall have given way to a uniform silver sky I peer at through red and yellow leaves as I walk down the street: winter is here.
This is a trying time for most. Folks’ faces start to reflect the gray weather. Girls’ jeans hems wick the rainwater from the sidewalk, soaking their legs up to the knees. But I look forward to this weather. It cheers me to look out the window and see a silver sky. There’s a winter scent on the breeze, crisp and clear as the ringing of Christmas bells, that means one thing: Placerville.
As a kid, the scent of summer meant freedom was coming: soon there’d be no school, no babysitters, no rules all day. Life slowed to my pace. I wore torn cutoffs and sandals every day. Now that I’m grown, summer’s lost it’s giddy anticipation—but winter hasn’t. I know the world will slow come Thanksgiving day. We’ll all jump on Highway 49, my cousin and I in his pickup with our overnight bags in the truck bed, and meet up at grandma’s Wednesday at dusk, my cousin and dad and my aunt and me.
I wait for that heady, crisp winter air every year. It means steamy mugs in gloved hands at the Cozmic, soft sweaters and scarves and hat hair and thick socks. It’s window shopping through Old Hangtown with the family, waking to my cousin’s cappuccinos in grandma’s kitchen in the mornings. It’s the classical station on the radio, pots and pans on the stove, red wine at Thanksgiving dinner.
Come Sunday, we all pile back into our cars and grandma waves goodbye from the sun porch and we return home to all we left behind. But a winter breeze still brings anticipation and freedom. And we’ll always have Placerville.