Snow Day

Today I played in the snow.

I have always loved winter. It's not that I don't know winter. Growing up in Chicago, I had a lot of it. I know the 40-below-zero days when the world goes hazy the minute you step outside because your contact lenses have frozen to your eyes. I know the gray mornings on the el platform when the wind whips in across the lake and cuts through the thickest of down coats. I know the foot-deep puddles of icy slush that transform every intersection into a fiendish pedestrian's obstacle course. I know the annual and ultimately futile pursuit for stylish and sexy boots that are also warm, waterproof, snow-proof, salt-proof, and slip-proof. I know the traffic tie-ups and cancelled flights, the cars that won't start and the months looking like a Yeti. And yet I love winter. That first morning when you open the curtains and discover your world has gone white. The smell of snow in the air. The way packed-up snow crunches under foot. Snowmen and snow angels. Snow forts and snow slides. Wool sweaters. Fountains frozen mid-splash. Flannel-lined jeans. Stew simmering on the stovetop. Cheeks reddened by an afternoon sledding. Those amazing ultra-blue sky days when the sun transfigures a snowy field into the fantasy backdrop of one of those 1930s musicals. The sharp shock of a cold wind.

So yes, I am one of few individuals I know who genuinely loves winter. Winter for me has a sharpness, a precision, an icy hardness and cold clarity. The fates, however, have conspired to ensure that I am stuck in the misty moisty molding muddle of the Deep South. Where even the merest hint of snow means utter hysteria and the end of life as we know it.

But today I was back in Snowland. And today I went sledding. Today I introduced my 4-year-old nephew and my 2-year-old godson to the thrill of catapulting down a steep hillside, skidding across the flatland, and coasting to an all-tumble-out stop into powdery snow.

Today was a good day. Today was a snow day.