Winter has always been magical for me, and snow represents the peak of that magical feeling. Not only is the accumulation of snow literal crystals congregating on top of our dirty world and refreshing it, but everything about the world feels different whenever a fresh snowfall settles. Each snow event and the situations that lead to it remain unique, a bunch of random collisions of air masses and moistures that eventually float overhead until they cannot stay there anymore. The white blanket everywhere mutes everything about our modern civilization, from the machines that take us places and make our lives more comfortable to the fears that our society has. As others have likely noted, the snow forces us to slow down whatever we are doing, sometimes for a few days, and it opens up a space where we can accomplish what we want to do instead of what others need us to do.
Maybe not everyone feels as strongly as I do about winter, but I had a small rumination that flowed into a meditation on one of my thousand trips to the windows and front door to watch the snow fall. As my family members from around the state shared the amounts of snow they had received to update everyone on their situations, I grew sad as I had to relate the smaller totals in my area, which had been forecasted to receive larger totals of snow. Even though the snow had moved into our area around an hour earlier than forecasted, the flakes were fine, small examples that seemed to disappear the longer a person stared at them. I love any winter weather possibilities at all, so the idea that I could come so close to an awesome demonstration of the power of winter and still not see it saddened me like nothing else could.
Yet I saw myself going to the windows to look at those falling snowflakes more than I did to see the snow that actually accumulated. Over even just a few of those trips to view the weather, those small flakes piled up until they were substantial enough to cover everything. Even the wide sets of footprints people left in the snow on the sidewalks quickly disappeared as layer upon layer of these small flakes destroyed any differences in contours between the yard, sidewalks, and road. Still they piled up because they fell relentlessly throughout the day. Snow all looks the same once great amounts of it gather in the same place.
Once I realized that fact, I realized I sometimes think the same way about my writing whenever I have a large task ahead of me. Writing 1,000 words a day makes the words feel like they pile up quickly at first, like snow when it first start sticking to the grass; at some point after that, though, the progress feels like it comes much slower, even if I exceed my goals, just as it takes a while for a little snow to become a lot of snow. After 10,000 or 15,000 words, it can feel like I am spinning my wheels in my own story until I break through and start the downward descent after the climax to reach some sort of conclusion. If I am writing another book in the series, then I feel like I am racing to leave everything at a clear point in the story from which I can start the next volume. I get to that part of the story and stop my march across a snowy field, looking back to see the damage I have caused.
In the end we did collect a healthy dose of snow across multiple days. The continuous nature of this winter storm helped everyone reach a winter wonderland just as much as a person’s daily habits contribute to a dream they want to achieve. This beautiful event seemed as good a time for me to meditate on working on my own goals after almost a week into the new year, although I certainly enjoyed some of the journeys along the way. Eggs still taste better on a snowy day no matter how you plan to spend your time, and the couch still calls me after any exertions outside. I have been fortunate enough to be able to spend the past few days reading, writing, and playing in the snow. I hope wherever you are that you are also warm, safe, and creative, even if you would rather the weather be anything else.
Keep writing!
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