Snapshots

"Snow" Exciting

I remember my first experience with snow. I was eleven. It was some random day in January, and the temperature had dropped to ten degrees Fahrenheit – the coldest I've ever felt.

I had seen snow before, but you could barely call it an experience. It had never been more than a dusting, and it rarely ever stuck enough to even call it that. So you can imagine our excitement as Grace and I got to stay up late just to watch the snow fall like fluffy raindrops and accumulate in our backyard like a thick, white rug, just like we'd seen in movies. I remember Grace and I begging and begging and begging to go outside until, at last, Mom decided to let us bundle up and go on a quick walk up and down the street, even though it was 1:00 am. I remember Grace and I having to find a second pair of pants to put on over our first pair, because Mom said we didn't have "snow pants" (whatever those were).

The first thing I remember noticing was just how white everything was. Not quite white, even – the streetlights tinted everything in a soft yellow. The sky was a dark, dark blue. The snow couldn't have been more than a foot or so deep at that point, but I remember thinking it must've been three feet at least. I couldn't believe how covered everything was. Every leaf, every porch chair, every toy left out in someone's front yard, and even sections of tree bark all held a thick, clean layer of white. I remember Grace and I looking straight up into the sky and the both of us getting dizzy from watching the snow continuously fall, fall, fall.

Then the cold hit me. I had never felt a cold that cold. I had heard people say things like "It's so cold I can't feel my fingers," and my fingers have felt very, very cold before, but when I took my glove off to see what snow felt like in my bare hand, I really couldn't feel my fingers, and I was shocked at just how cold something could be. It was also soft, wet, and even hard if I squeezed enough of it together. I quickly put my glove back on.

When I stepped on fresh snow, it had a shuffling, whooshing sound. I'd never heard anything like it. And when I stepped on snow that Grace had stepped on first, it had a crunchy, almost squeaky sound. And then, if I stood really still and held my breath for a second, I could hear the snow fall, like a thousand muffled tap tap taps coming from every direction, and it was dark but also light and everything was the same color and I was surrounded by cold and I felt like the only person in the world.

Grace and I tried tasting snow. It tasted a lot like water and a little bit like a stick. And when Grace and I laid down to make our very first snow angels, I got to feel just how soft it is. I wanted to just lay there forever and let the snow cover me. But Mom told me to hurry up because she was getting cold and it was getting late, so I made my snow angel and took a moment to look at it and be proud before running inside.

The three of us huddled around the space heater after taking off our wet coats, scarves, gloves, and second pair of pants. Mom heated up mugs of apple cider in the microwave, and we held them so our palms could suck up the warmth and sipped slowly as we talked about our favorite part. Mom's favorite part was the sound of the snow. Grace liked how soft it was. I couldn't decide on a favorite, but one thing I especially liked was getting to look straight up in the air and watch as fluffy whiteness kept falling...falling...falling.