Snow

The world outside lays suspended in a yawning anticipation. The broken snow has regained some of its tranquility in the orange glow of the streetlamps, as if it knows its raped surface will soon be cloaked by a new blanket; with my face pressed to the cold window, I imagine I see a single flake already falling. It is just the glow of the lights.

I remember, as a child, cutting paper snowflakes to adorn the windows at home in hopes that it might snow. No matter with how much care I cut, I could never create a snowflake close enough to my ideal—pure, consistent, crystalline perfection. But every year I would try, and every year I would gaze in wonder when the real thing came, framed through by glass by my feeble copies. I loved everything about the snow, then. I would jump into my snow pants and boots, wriggle my way into a coat, throw on a hat and mittens, and into the snow I’d dive. It was pristine, and I loved it all: fluffy, flakey snow that scattered around my diving body; sticky, snowball-making snow; snow that crunched and creaked when you walked; and even iced-over, crusty snow that could bear my weight and made me feel like I was on top of the world. I loved sliding downhill on the ice with no sled, or breaking off little ice chunks to send rocketing down the mountainside. And then, of course, there were the snow forts. When Dad plowed the driveway, he left two huge, glorious snow banks ideal for an enterprising 9-year-old (and her pest younger brother). We took out shovels and made stairs and tunnels; we built up walls and created snowball (or, occasionally, forbidden ice ball) stockpiles. We smoothed out slides and poured water down them to create icy, slippery joyrides.

Outside the night seems to have gotten darker, as though the promising clouds have obstructed an inexplicable light source. I realize how much, and yet how little, I’ve seen from this window. The library bell tower rises up over the darkened campus, its huge clock a constant reminder that I should be studying, or sleeping, or in some other way battling the destructive passage of time. This late, at least, its bells don’t call out their hourly reproach. Perhaps the coming storm will muffle their shrillness.

The first time I ever disliked snow was on a car ride home from church with my mom, late one night. For reasons I can’t remember, I was anxious to get home. Our Ford Explorer crawled bravely along the road, and the snow seemed to come straight towards like tiny white bullets.
“But can’t you go a little faster, Mom?” I asked for the umpteenth time.
“Unless you wanna go off the road, no,” she’d shot back, irritated by my bickering and preoccupied with navigating us safely through the blizzard. It wasn’t a conscious thing. I didn’t even know at the time that this would change my perception of snow, but it did. From that point on, snow was an enemy.

They moved the snow banks last week. A fleet of trucks plowed and maneuvered and caused a huge racket, and when they were done the banks were flat: ready for a new snowfall. There were rumors of a snow day . . . but they don’t have those in college. Snow days were a singular pleasure of high school. It’s quiet out there now. The old snow looks like a dusty, barren desert. But it doesn’t yearn for rain—rain is heaven’s teardrops, weeping in the luscious summertime upon a hot, lustful earth. This desert longs for snowflakes, ice cold and yet gentle as a lover’s touch. I’ve stared out this window long enough that I begin to yearn for it, too.

Why did I spend so many winters fighting the snow? I saw fluffy white snow and complained that the roads would be impassable, that I was stuck at home for one more day that I didn’t want to be. I saw sticky, snowball-worthy snow and groaned at how heavy it was to shovel. I grew annoyed at the creaky, crunchy snow that made boots a necessity, and I raged endlessly against the layers of ice that would keep the fields, and more importantly the track, covered for one more week come April. After all, how was I supposed to practice, and improve, and get myself to a college-worthy athletic level with the damned ice holding me back? Since I grew out of my middle-school snow pants, I haven’t owned another pair. I spent my winters indoors, poring over textbooks or wasting away the hours on a computer, anxious for summer. It was always about the future, and never about the present.

I can feel the cold window against my skin like a kiss. I am absorbed by the frozen anticipation that awaits the pregnant clouds. Though I can’t see through the night, I can feel them: they loom in a dark mass at the edge of my consciousness, not threatening, but enthralling, beckoning me with an electric magnetism. Just wait, they seem to say. All will be well. I put away my textbooks and prepare to go to sleep. Tomorrow, I will wake up to a reborn world.

But before I got to sleep, I am compelled to do one thing: I take out scissors and a sheet of paper and, with unpracticed fingers, cut out a little snowflake. It’s nowhere near perfect—but it’ll do.