I am addicted to snow. Sadly, I missed the best part of it on the Vineyard because I was stranded in Rhode Island by the winds that canceled Vineyard ferries. Of course in Providence, where the snowfall was plentiful too, I could enjoy it. The cityscape became country-scape after the snow had arrived. Even after the plows had made a swipe at back streets, enough snow remained for neighborhood children near where I stayed to build a snow fort. I remembered sliding down College Hill on a tray decades ago when I lived there. But I chafed to be back in West Tisbury, listening to the radio broadcasts describing heavy snow on the Island and drifts that high winds had made.

With buses canceled because of icy roads off-Island, it took several days before I was back on the Vineyard. Of course I had missed the wondrous time here before the plows and the sanders are out, when the snow is untouched but for rabbit and deer tracks. Rez Williams told me that West Tisbury then was West Tisbury of the 1960s.

By the time I ventured very far out, there was ice beneath the snow on Tiasquam Road. But with YakTracks on the soles of my boots, I went exploring. The main roads were clear and I found myself walking and walking. I would have preferred to walk in the woods, but friends were warning that the drifts were too deep. I recalled being lost in a fresh snowfall near Glimmerglass Pond not so many years ago. The trees had changed shape laden with snow. My usual landmarks had disappeared. Although I was quite near where the Tiasquam flows not far from my own backyard, I could not find my way to it. So rather than taking to the woods, I walked up to Alley’s and went on up the State Road past the parsonage where I once lived.

In the Sheriff’s Meadow field that slopes down to the West Tisbury-Edgartown Road, I was looking for crows. On my living room wall hangs a painting of crows in that field in the snow. It was painted by my husband, the late Thomas Cocroft on one of those snowy days in the 1950s that Rez Williams had been remembering. There were no crows to be seen on my walk, but I wondered if there might be otters on the Mill Pond ice. I am not even sure if any still live there, though Nancy Cabot tells me she has seen some playing in nearby Glimmerglass this winter.

But even if I missed the crows and otters, just before sunset the Mill Pond ice was worth seeing — all blue and gold, framed in brown cattails and the bare branches of rushes and sweet pepper bush. In the cold and snow — even though I was enjoying it — the library looked cozy and enticing. As I passed the Field Gallery, where Tom Maley’s scantily clad statues seemed to be shivering, warming up in library stacks seemed especially appealing.

The First Congregational Church in the snow was in a picture postcard New England setting. Like the church, the dark-shuttered 19th-century white houses that I have been told were captains’ houses were picture postcard New England along Music street. I was pleased to see that the Christmas wreath was still hanging on David and Rosalie McCullough’s front door. When I reached the Panhandle, serpentine snow-capped stone walls wound along it and evergreens gleamed against their white backdrop.

Though I missed the best of this splendid Island snowfall, I have not missed it all. There are more adventurous walks for me to take now that some of the ice has melted. And there are still five-foot snowdrifts in my backyard for me to climb through and for my cats to play in.