The First Snow

Last night I looked at the weather radar last thing before going to sleep and the blue smudge of a snow storm was right over the house. I did not, as my Inner Child demanded, spring out of bed into my slippers and rush outdoors. There's plenty of time to see snow this year. I may be sick and tired of snow before winter ends. But probably not.

I didn't expect the little blue smudge to amount to anything, but when I got up this morning and looked out the window, there was snow on the ground in patches and big wet flakes falling! Any thought a mature adult from Pennsylvania would have had was totally absent from my head. It was the first snow of the year! As usual, I rushed from window to window wearing an uncharacteristic smile. The first snow! How lovely! And it only happens once a year. (Never mind that it's happened to me sixty times before.)

I love the first snowfall. I love almost ALL snowfalls. You think it's because I'm retired and have nowhere pressing to drive? Wrong. Even when I was working and my employer accepted no excuse (not even roads closed by the police) for lateness or absence, I loved snow. Back then, living within feet of a busy highway, the silence at night would wake me up. Winter. No trucks passing. A long, long silence. It could only mean one thing. I'd get up, pad in sock-feet to the front window, and look out across three lanes of unmarked white. I'd rejoice. I knew that, in the morning, I'd be shovelling, then scraping off the windshield and leaving an hour early for a white-knuckle commute. But I'd rejoice anyway, in the silence and the beauty.

The first snow, or any snow. It elevates my spirit, delights my Inner Child, draws me outside to experience it with all my senses. I snow-shoe in it, catch flakes on my tongue, and make the very occasional snow angel. I even enjoy shovelling, as long as some vehicle has not packed it down into a sheet of ice. I could live in a clime without snow, but I wouldn't want to. An important bit of magic would be missing from my life.

Especially that once-a-year miracle of transformation:  The first snow!