The Great White North

Winter appeared today with the first snowfall of the season. There’s something akin to “dreamy” about the season’s first snowfall. As I see it, there is a fine line for snow between wonderful and miserable that the first snow almost always gets a pass on regardless of other events. It is inevitably wonderful, especially if it comes before the holidays and you can warm up with a bowl of tomato soup sitting beside a decorated Christmas tree with gifts gathering underneath.

I got to leave work early, happily driving through the thick of the storm, with speeds cut in half by the very real threat of icy conditions. When I got home, in the midst of the snowfall, I pulled out the old snow shovel to shovel the few inches of snow that lined our driveway and front stoop. I was oddly delighted to do so – cheerfully remembering the hours upon back-breaking hours spent performing this chore in last year’s Snow-pocalypse.

Post-snow-pocolyptic

The snow last year was miserable, in every sense of the word. It was wonderful as it fell on a Friday night and all day Saturday, but even as it continued to fall on Saturday night, the misery sank in as you were forced to consider getting to work on Monday. By Sunday, the blanket of white made way to a landscape marked by dirty sloshes of snow, and the impending work was in full swing. 

This is the only picture we took of the snow on the cars.  You can kind of see them under the snow.

It was a neighborhood effort and led to piles of snow taller than me. Soon we ran out of places to put the snow and we called it a day. I haven’t spoken to some of those people since.

Going to work wasn’t even considered the first day or two for most, but I believe soon everyone grew snow-weary and work beckoned so the roads filled and accidents happened and people got angry.

That snow was miserable. Today’s was beautifully wonderful.