First Snow.

There’s something so hopeful in the first snow of the year, so full of promise. Yet there is something sinister in the biting cold. Isn’t that how life is? A wonderfully exciting mix of hopeful and sinister, and guessing which will come next.

There is something blissfully sweet in tasting fresh snow on your tongue.

As I slipped and slid through the already melting snow on the sidewalk in front of my new home many of my new friends asked if this was my first time seeing snow.
No, I replied, but I always consider it my first time anyway.

Isn’t it nice to think that as you watch the delicate fat flakes drift slowly to the earth that this is the first time you are ever seeing something so beautiful? Isn’t it a nice feeling that the rush of excitement you feel as you don your jacket and gloves (or in my case socks) and rush out into the cold to warm your heart with childish play is as if for the first time, every time?

There is something so hopeful in the promise of the first snow of the year, barely fresh on the ground before it is in your hands and you’re hurling it at your friend. Something so beautiful about how the snowflakes settle in your eyelashes and make the whole world look, if only for that fleeting moment, perfect.
In that moment time stands still. It is not the first snow of the year, but the only snow of the year, and every snow of the year. It is the winter you spent snowed in in Italy, and the surprise snow in Cyprus, and the first snow you ever saw and the last snow you will ever see all at once. It is hopeful, it is infinite.

And then a snowball hits you and the rush brings you back to the present, and the cold catches up with you and you can’t feel your cheeks or your hands, but you are happy.