Project Say Something: Let it Snow!

Snow.
What's your favorite thing about it? Your favorite thing to do in it? Your favorite memory in relation to it.

I asked this question because I was freaking stranded in SLC for a week because it wouldn't stop snowing. That, and I had forgotten it was my turn so hadn't given a topic a single thought in weeks.

I love the snow. I mean love. Love that's up there with chocolate and crepes and really cheesy, bad movies and long, hot baths and long conversations with old friends and... Do you get the idea? I'm not a skier or a snowboarder or a do much of anything "in" the snow person. Though I do love cross-country skiing, I haven't done it in ages but boy, I loved it (no, not as much as snow. Or chocolate. Or... I need a bigger vocabulary of like words). Sledding is fun though I haven't done that since high school either. And snowmobiling (that was probably jr. high). Mostly, I love the snow but I HATE being cold. So even snowball fights and making snowmen take a lot to get me out there.

I think my thing is how it just covers the world in a blanket of pure perfection. It hides the dirt and the weeds and the garbage and the muck and buries it in its glistening shimmer of clean white. It makes the ugliest of ugly beautiful. And immediately the atmosphere is peaceful and serene. I love the sound after a freshly fallen snow. The way even the silence is amplified by it.

That it can kill you in an instant is something else entirely. Also, when it turns to brown, plowed/shoveled snow (or yellow! The horror!), it's time for it to melt and move on.
I used to dream of living in a small village in Alaska where it was covered in feet of snow for most of the year and that was just how life was. Being so used to it, walking down the street in it wasn't a punishing chore but just something you did. (There may not be anywhere in Alaska like that, I have no idea. Now my dream is just to visit there someday.)

During a snowstorm, sitting near a window, in front of a small fire with a cup of hot cocoa, reading a book - there just can't be a better way to spend one's time. Unless it's stuck in your car at the top of a hill your friend dares you go down then at the last minute you both realize that if you go down it, you'll NEVER get back up and so you spend HOURS trying to figure out how to get out of the rut you've got yourself in just to find out that all you have to do is drive down the damn hill and you'll easily get back up. That's always been one of my favorite things to do in the snow.

And this year I have found some other ways to enjoy the snow - through my (INSANE) toddler. We've done snow angels, made snowmen, had snowball fights, stayed out in the dark until we were both near-numb from the cold and just had all sorts of fun in the snow. I look forward to a million more snowstorms and finding all sorts of things to do in them.