Let It Snow

Don't get the wrong idea here.  I am a Floridian with a plastic pink flamingo soul.  I am not a lover of snow or a fan of the cold or a "winter person."  I will choose sandals over boots any day.  But after staying in my house for two days and watching it fall, I have to admit that I have developed a tentative, grudging admiration for that white stuff.

Two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen, one of the most basic formulas in the universe.  And somehow it has knocked out this hard-working city for at least one more work day and turned everything on its head.  It's living proof that there is, in fact, great power to be found in simplicity, that the small things really can be the big things.  Did I mention that no two snow flakes are exactly the same?

 Snow is amazing because it becomes everything.  The snow on my rooftop looked like bolts of fabric, the snow I shoveled fell like powdered sugar.  I saw pieces of snow like rocks and mashed potatoes and glitter.  It tasted like cotton candy, but colder and more nefarious.

As the snow becomes everything, everything becomes snow: asphalt and metal and branches and streets.  There is an air of whimsy to everything because nothing has a practical use buried under 2 feet of snow.  Cars and trees and signs and rooftops: it is as if all these things exist merely for the sake of holding up the snow in different shapes.  We are all familiar with the silouhette of the snow-man, but what about snow-cars and snow-benches and snow-bushes?  It consumes everything. 

Snow storms are one of the ways that Nature reminds us who is really in control here.  I watched the snow fall for around 36 hours and it did not stop, not for a minute.  The words that come to mind are unrelenting, unforgiving.  The snowfall turned my back yard into Everest, it is powerful enough to bury everything, it stops for nothing.  And yet for us humans, in our wonderfully human way, it is the stuff of sentiment and holiday cards and pure delight.  We are not the only ones.

But what I admire most is how wild and inconvenient and messy it is.  It covers everything and fills the in-between spaces we take for granted.  It blocks roads and closes offices and does not bend to anyone's political will.  And yet the newly fallen snow is a universal symbol for purity.  There are these enchanting moments when it is pristine and perfect.  Stunning and beautiful and awe-inspiring.  

 Life is that way too, if you're paying attention.  Difficult because it is so far beyond our control, but at moments wonderful beyond our wildest dreams for the same reason.  

Stunning and beautiful and awe-inspiring. 

Let it snow.