Snow

This fall, when it snowed for the first time of the season -- giving us a taste of white promises yet to come -- I stared blankly at the crystalline landscape. It was the first snow of the year, and the first year of my life that the snow did not fill me with girlish giddiness. I wasn't excited; I wasn't entertained. I was bored and irritated; for once, snow didn't mean a Carroll-ine wonderland in which to enjoy adventures, but a mess of cold, wet, sloppy brown slush to trudge through, in the dreary mornings, to long days of lectures.

This particular semester was a difficult one, a pivotal one, in some ways. It showed me a glimpse of "the real world," with work and schedules and taxes and life insurance. It showed me the end of the bookish, philosophical, head-in-the-clouds life of the academic -- a life I had embraced and grown to love. This disenchantment with snow, something that had always made me curl my toes in anticipation, woke me to a harsh realization. I realized that this life was, first of all, not un-ending. That would not have deterred me, but then I realized that this life was not perfect. Again, I would have made do, muddled through; but the light of truth had not yet finished blinding me. Finally, I realized that this life -- the life of the book, the life of the theory, the life of the most brilliant and beautiful minds I have ever known -- was not for me.

Have you ever watched a rose bloom, from a bud to a half-blown flower to a full-bloom rose, then slowly drop its fragile petals one by one? Have you ever seen the frantic, futile efforts of a dog chase his tail, or salmon swim upstream, or a leaf hang on to its trembling branch, in the coldest chill of autumn? Absurd, perhaps, and pitiful. Have you ever come to the slow, sinking realization of a truth that you've known all the time, but never had the strength to acknowledge?

It hurts. It's a sort of numb, dry hurt that makes you want to fight against the wind or knock your head against a brick wall or scream loudly enough to shatter all the windows in the building. But unfortunately, you're sitting in a dorm, and screaming is only going to scare everyone else. So you sit and stare at the television, completely oblivious to what is happening in that alter-reality.

Today, it snowed again. I didn't know what to think at first; it had snowed a couple times these past few months, but nothing real. Nothing worth noticing. When I saw it snowing again, I didn't groan; I hadn't thought about snow much recently, but seeing it again brought a new sensation. I smiled a little; then I laughed. The world was re-enchanting itself, with the promise of a new semester and a new year and a new snow. A clean canvas to work on -- and the most crystalline work of art ever invented.

Snow.

It will probably melt by tomorrow, or at least turn melty and slushy and nasty and brown. But for now, it is beautiful, and the stars shine even more brightly because of it. And so, I will curl up with my white tigers and my tea, and watch eagerly for the next white promises of flakes.