For some people the childhood memories of the first snowfall of the season meant double chocolate whipped coco, a sleigh ride, fuzzy mittens drying on the mudroom register and a silky blond dog dozing in front of the fire. Maybe that’s a little “Norman Rockwell” for most regular people, but the sentiment is fun and frolic and snowflakes dancing on your tongue kinda stuff. I get it, I really do. I’ve seen the Cosby show. In my house, snow meant something entirely different and that included the family favorite “frozen chick.” I would get doused in water and thrown out on to the snow covered back deck while my brothers and their friends would watch through the locked sliding glass door and lay bets on how long it would take for icicles to form. It was always my hair that froze first and then hem of the boxers that I often lounged in. (It certainly didn’t bring coco and roaring fires to mind.) I spent most winters of my youth on the brink of hypothermia. There were also the snowballs with rocks hidden in them and face washes with the crusty ice/snow that were designed to draw blood. Winter in my house was a full contact sport.

For most people, and having since grown up and moved away from the war zone, I understand how the first snowfall brings out the giddy kid in us. That weird Styrofoam like crunch under your boots, tingling red noses and the smell. Holy hell, if someone could capture and bottle the smell of freshly fallen snow, I’d be willing to give that hate-in-a-bottle that is perfume a second chance. I spent the winter in Argentina a couple of years ago and it was bizarre to see holiday decorations being hung by people in flip flops and tank tops. You grow accustomed to what you have and winter without snow and ice and the occasional black eye just seems odd. A snow-less season is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there. Snow makes everything fresh and clean and almost–dare I say it–virginal. Granted, the lily white status doesn’t last long and eventually morphs into disgusting piles of dirty slush, but before it does, it’s magical. It blankets our yards and cars and makes all of the sharp edges rounded and soft and twinkling as if the moon were a disco ball. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t mowed your lawn in three years or that the packing boxes from your move in 1990 are still in a rotting heap in the back because snow makes us all even. “Ha! Lookie here, my yard is just as nice as yours!” Snow has a super power similar to spring rain in that it washes away that almost indistinguishable layer of filth that lies invisible on everything. Snow however has a bonus super power and no, it isn’t a snappier costume. Where rain washes and then departs, snow covers, disguises, muffles, washes and then leaves the room. You also can’t make a snowman out of rain water. You can try, but you’ll look like an idiot.

For me, snow is at the peak of it’s beauty when I’m walking my dog late at night on the quiet side streets that lead to the tree filled neighborhood park. Seeing the snow fall silently through the small circle of light thrown from the park’s ornately carved iron lamp stand while surrounded in snow laden trees is tough to beat and it gets me every time. Every night I have stop and stare at it quietly for a few minutes while my dog bounds through the open spaces like a maniac. It’s breathtaking. If it were a scenes from my childhood, the beauty and the calm would undoubtedly be shattered by a frozen chunk of mud embedding itself in my skin just above my collar bone. My sibs would have been going for a head shot but I believe that as a child, my first real Christmas present was their poor hand/eye coordination. It truly was the give that has kept on giving.

**by me and as originally published in Off-Centre Magazine Dec 08 edition**