I love the snow. I always have. The way it hushes the world, the way it makes even familiar streets feel briefly mythic. I am not anti winter, In fact, it just barely loses to Autumn as my favorite season. I am just realistic about what winter does to a body that has been around the block a few times.

Cool weather suits me fine. Sixties are great. Forties are lovely. That is jacket weather, walk a little farther weather, breathe deep and feel awake weather. My joints agree with that version of the season. We are all on the same page.

But once the thermometer slides down into the twenties and the teens, my back and joints stage a quiet rebellion. Nothing dramatic. Just a firm and persistent no. The kind that does not respond to optimism or extra layers or bravado.

So I admire the snow from inside once it crosses that line. I watch it fall, appreciate its discipline and its beauty, and let it exist without demanding my participation. There is no betrayal in that. Loving something does not mean enduring all of it.

And this is where chili enters the picture. Chili and corn chips are a wonderful thing in cold weather. They make the cold feel like a suggestion rather than a threat. A bowl of chili warms you from the inside out, steady and honest, with corn chips doing their essential work of crunch and salt and comfort.

Staying in becomes a form of respect. Respect for the weather as it is, respect for the limits of a body that has earned the right to be listened to, and respect for the simple truth that some winter days are sometimes best enjoyed with a spoon in hand and the snow safely on the other side of the glass.