White, Part 1

New York City (and much of the east coast, from what I understand) has had an unusually mild winter so far. It’s only snowed once, back in early Dec, and I didn’t get pictures. I told myself I’d go out the next day, but it didn’t snow much, and by the next day most of the snow had melted off. My friends told me that we were supposed to get snowed on today, between 3 & 6 inches. This is what they’d said last time, but given how mild it’s been, I didn’t believe it.
This time, they were right.
It started snowing at about 7 PM last night, snowed all night, and is still snowing as of noon today. But this time, I went and got pictures. There are several posts below these that have pics, and some fun ‘before & after’ shots. Even though my Canon Powershot is a little bulky, I continue to be impressed by the pictures it takes.
Snow and I have a funny relationship. I lived in Texas, where it snowed heavily, but I don’t remember it being bitterly cold, my friends and I played in the snow, and I remember it being fun. When I lived in central Washington State as a child, it snowed there too, and I remember climbing up the mountains of snow that the snow plows would push together in parking lots and playing king of the hill. (These were good mountains too, let’s say at least 12 feet high, some higher) Then my family moved to Canada for the last three years I lived with them before moving out, and I learned a new definition of snow and of cold. It snowed a ton where we lived. And it was cold. I’m talking negative forty degrees cold (which by the way, is the same measurement on either Fahrenheit or Celsius scales) where it would stay for weeks at a time. The place we lived in Canada was very rural, and I was always lonely there. I came to associate snow with those feelings, and I grew to hate it.
In Seattle, where I moved to after high school, it almost never snows, let’s say maybe once or twice a year, and never very heavily. And it’s never cold, not by the standards I knew. It was great. But I always resented the snow, even for the day or two it fell, as if it were interrupting my life in some way.When it snowed here back in Dec, my resentment of it came through loud and clear again, but as I wandered around campus and looked at things, I realized it was actually kind of pretty. The way it fell and stayed on the buildings, accenting things, kind of cool. Plus, they have the good, heavy-duty snow removal equipment here in the city, so the roads were plowed the very next day. And it wasn’t so cold. I decided to get over my grudge with snow.
So today when I went outside to take pictures, I found myself enjoying it. That’s saying something.It’s still very dry snow, powdery, like flour, so you can’t make snowmen or have snowball fights. But I saw more than a few families out with sleds, and I thought it looked like fun. You never know, it could be a good time …