Yesterday, the public schools called a two-hour “fog delay.” Last month, on a Saturday, the fog didn’t lift until late afternoon, clearing up just in time to reveal the expansive winter sunset.

Growing up in the Rocky Mountains, I had seen fog, but it was nothing like this. On our morning walk, my two daughters and I enjoy the surprises that seem to appear and disappear with every step: the squirrels that run ubiquitously through parks, woods and streets, the morning doves that coo under hedges, the mushrooms peeking out from under early spring grasses.

The fog seems to muffle every sound, but the eerie quiet is punctuated with the cawing of crows, who sit atop leafless tulip poplars, towering oaks, and low hanging pines—any branch large enough to support their weight.

It’s odd that I feel closest to this new place when vision is obscured and sound muffled. We take our walks when it is sunny, cloudy, or even rainy, but my memory retains the days spent in the fog. Those days are singular. The feeling of the cold, moist air on my skin is simultaneously earthly and heavenly, and the beauty of our small home as it comes into view—pieces of it coming into focus with every step—is the only slow motion reunion I have ever witnessed in real time.