How I Learned to Stop Complaining and Love the Snow

Yesterday was the first significant snowfall of the year here. By significant, I mean that everything is covered in white: lawn, trees, driveway.  

I hear many people complaining about the snow.

“It’s cold.”

“I’m cold.”

“Why do I still live in Chicago?”

“I hate snow.”

I love snow.

Fresh snow is clean and makes everything pretty. It covers up the bare patch of dirt that is sometimes a garden. It smooths over the ugly brown grass and dead leaves. It masks the dog poop I’ve been too lazy to pick up. It beautifies the roses I neglected to cut back. In short, it hides all my yardwork failures.

With snow on the ground, I can kick the kids out of the house for an hour without feeling like I’m punishing them.

But most of snow’s appeal to me comes through contrast. Looking out at the snow while sitting in my kitchen, drinking a giant mug of hot coffee and wearing a thick hoodie and slippers, makes me feel snug and comforted. There is nothing like it.

This is partly mostly why I enjoy skiing. I don’t ski well by any measure, and living where I do, I don’t get much opportunity to practice. That’s okay, though, because the best part of skiing is coming into the lodge from the slopes, cheeks flushed with the cold and mild exercise (that’s how I do skiing—mildly), shaking snow off my hat, and settling down in a chair by the fire. In this fantasy, a handsome ski instructor who looks suspiciously like Viggo Mortensen hands me a steaming mug of spiked cocoa, then proceeds to….

Never mind. You get the point. Did you know that many ski resorts have hot tubs?  True fact.

Sure, I could save time, energy and equipment rental by hanging out in the lodge all day. But it’s the contrast that’s delicious. Not being warm, but warming up. Not drinking the cocoa, but feeling the steam on your thawing cheeks. Not being in the hot tub, but sinking into it to escape the chill air.  There is no way to live in that moment for more than a few seconds, to prolong the exquisite contrast. It is here and gone, and you’d better be paying attention if you don’t want to miss it.

For the same reason, I wouldn’t want snow year round. For me, the joy of snow is that it’s fleeting, temporary. It gets dirty and slushy and packed down. It melts. But right now, in this moment, as I sit here typing, the snow is achingly beautiful. I know the beauty won’t last.

That is what makes it beautiful.