Snowfriends

Oh frabjous day! Callooh, callay!

That about summed up everything I had to say on the subject of the weather last night, which still seems to be going on today.

It snowed. It snowed gloriously. Friend, friend's husband, and I were hanging out watching a movie, and husband got a call from the local police department. They've declared "no unnecessary travel" for the town, and are in fact ticketing any and every one that they find driving downtown.

This is a good snowstorm.

I planned to leave friend's and go to bed. Upon stepping outside the shelter of her porch, I was immediately enraptured. This is snow. This is home. Well, like home, anyway.

I've been missing Minnesota on some deeper levels lately. Spring arrives so differently in the Great Plains than the Rockies. Evidently up here, it's a lot of stops and starts. Back home, winter arrives, makes a nest, and only a very impressive thaw might budge it. Even then, it will only be for a few weeks. So, when Spring DOES arrive, there's a great internal celebration. The warm winds drying out the earth and the smell of grass, new earth, new life all make me want to run! Running for sheer joy - not to escape anything, but because you're so filled with joy that you can't hold still.

But this...this was a snowstorm. We don't actually get snow quite like this around my neck of the woods very often. We get the occasional whiteout, and we get inches upon inches, but big heavy snow like this...I was half-certain that Lake Superior was just over the next hill.

I went for a walk. Originally, I stopped by Signscout's (his hall is between friend's house and mine), just to say hi - he was about to head for bed, and then the girls came by...which means he won't be going to bed for a few hours yet. They're both friendly and loud. It was determined that snowplay was in order.

I snarfed my gloves and boots and went back out, but for some reason I only played for a minute before ducking around the twins' house and heading up the street. This is the sort of snowfall that speaks of 'home'. I can't be loud and raucous in it without taking some time just to be in it.

It was a long walk. I almost went around the corral, but I remembered the cattle guards, and considered that the high potential for injury (because I am a klutz) would be increased in the snow. I'd actually encountered one of our campus-security friends, who asked me not to do anything stupid so that he'd have to come look for me later. Unnecessarily playing with cattle guards in seven inches of snow seemed to fit the bill.

How could this have been better? Being up in the woods for it. Heavy snowfall when you're in the trees is like the world forgetting and rejoicing in the same moment. Quiet worship, maybe. When you find a place to be still, to lean against a friendly tree and just watch, listen, feel, breathe - you're taking in so much that you forget you're there. Dazzling hills in the sunlight will be the joy in a few days, but for now the world is wrapped in on itself, whispering a thousand things more important than anything that's had your attention today.

I'm almost sad to leave prints as I cross the field towards the furthest building on campus. They're the only mark there that someone is alive out here - everyone else is tucked into their warm dorms, sleeping, studying, or watching tv.

Beautiful. Dickens has a line in "Things That Never Die" about "the impulses to wordless prayer." There aren't words. Infinitesimal crystals without number flooding the skies and cascading to the surface, with a sound like a thousand of the gentlest, privatest kisses when they touch. The sheer joy of 'cold' - good cold, not a cold that hurts, but a cold that stirs at the life-force inside you and brings it bubbling to the surface. You're aware of how vulnerable you are (I'm usually much more aware of the lack of protection around certain internal organs, and the exposed jugular in my throat, where life runs just beneath the surface), and how fiercely alive you are. You want to run, leap, tackle, thrive. Of course, if you try all that, you'll probably wipe out - the first five inches are good powder, the next two are good packed snow (splendid for ammunition), and the bottom inch is wet. Good luck with that.

The walk back was interesting. Painful. I had a few things to say to myself, "You're from Minnesota, and one semester out here teaches you to forget everything you know about preparing for the snow. Brilliant." I was courting tissue damage on my face. Snow's like the ocean - it's beautiful, and splendid, and a glorious reminder of how small you are - but it's also grand and dangerous and uncaring when you forget how much it can do to you.

Stopped in at the hall across the parking lot from my house to warm up, checked my phone (this at least I remembered. If you're going to go do something that might prove stupid later, make sure you have a way to contact the paramedics. I hadn't been sure before how far I was going, and y'never know, I might take it into my head to hike to the next town, just because this is so pretty). According the said phone, the gang's still in the little neighborhood between the six houses. Renewed from my stint in the protected entryway, I charged back to my house, to pursue a hat. Later in the night, I went back for a change of jeans and snowpants, as well.

Perhaps not a snowbattle, per se, but a fine bout of snowplay consumed the next few hours. Signscout commended me repeatedly on a shot to his face - it was actually a miss, I was trying for one of the twins, and he moved into it. Prior to the snowpants, one of the twins nailed me in the quad with a giant snowball that hurt like a high-velocity wombat. And, evidently, while I was retrieving said snowpants, I missed a fine whitewashing.

I do not whitewash people, because I absolutely hate being on the receiving end of it, and once you give it, you're probably going to receive it. If someone has the poor sense to be lying on the ground, I will cheerfully pile snow on their face, but I will not rub it in. That's just mean.

Pictures were captured, snow was flung, chills were shared, and laughter was made. It was a grand night.