Oh Hello...Snow

Being that I am a native California (yeah, that's right, my home state takes up most of the west coast; whatcha gonna do about it?) I still am in awe every time it snows. Now granted, I had seen snow before moving to Boston (there's photographic evidence somewhere) but when it snows and I am inside and I am able to actually enjoy it, there's something great and majestic and magical about it.

Yes, I am well aware that it is a cold, harsh beast when you are in the middle of it, slogging through piles up to your kneecaps and all you want to do is lay down in it and give up and die. Yes, I've had this experience too. But right now, as I sit at the switchboard in the MCB and watch as the flurries come down, I like the calm that the snow brings. It sort of reminds me of standing at the edge of the ocean, watching the waves come in. It's gives me that feeling of, "Wow, this is something bigger than me. Something I could never recreate in the same way." And no, Michael Bay, you can try all you want, but you can't ever capture this same feeling.

And yes, because I am feeling lethargic for the very reason that it is snowing outside and I all I want to do is curl up with a good book, I leave you with an assignment I created for my Writing II class recently:

The first time I saw snow, I thought the world had ended. It didn’t make me afraid, but rather, it made me want to be the only person on the entire Earth able to experience this magic. It was a selfish wish, to not share the snow with anyone else.The sharp, crisp outline of the tree outside my window looked like a beacon of the apocalypse, its branches pointed out to the road. Each individual piece of bark seemed as if one breeze would blow them all away. I opened my window and the world was quiet, quieter than I had ever experienced. It was peaceful, made me more hyper aware of my own being.

My breathing was the only sound, soft, shallow, my breath coming out in short puffs that appeared in front of me and dissipated into the quiet. The snow was falling slowly, flake after flake seeking more like it until they all gathered on the ground, a giant white layer of powder that covered the driveway, and trailed out into the yard. If I jumped out the window, I was certain that I would float like a snowflake and poof into the pile on the ground, as if the snow was nothing more than a pile of feathers.

I reached out and caught some snowflakes, each one more delicate than the next, so small, and yet I could see every fiber, every ice crystal, and I wanted to keep all of them frozen to commemorate this moment in time.

No matter how old I grow, it is this moment that I remember every time it snows.