First Snow

The first snow, and I can't pretend it's just a chilly Spring day with summer coming. The first snow, and the denial melts away in a blasty, swirly, messy line of crispy flakes, thirty miles from Cleveland. Returning from Thanksgiving, the going home express found the snow front. All aboard.

Not rain, not sleet, not gloom of night, it's 1 p.m. and the flakes are real. Winter is coming (if not here) and our well-trod attitudes of snow-siege survival is dusted off for another year. We all know how much winter sucks.

Imagine saying "Boy, I can't wait to be scraping ice off the windshield, skinning my bare knuckles on cold metal, slipping on ice patches as I brush off overnight's 6 inches and, hopefully, throwing the old back out later while shoveling." Thought not.

But what we forget, every year, is that fighting winter only makes it worse.

Call it extreme embracement, and blame it on Zen. Instead of hating the next four months what about this: graciously and aggressively welcome the cold, the wet, the biting wind, the socks that don't keep toesies warm, the hair-killing hats, the frozen snot that's gross and the car that takes too long to heat. Laugh in winter's frosty face.

Believe that winter is just the prelude to gratitude--for buds in the spring, summer's magic  light and autumn's abundance... just a palette cleanser in advance of tasty rebirth. Never mind cruddy black snow, sloppy half-frozen puddles, angry shoppers and lost mittens. Think minty freshness, snow globes, Elves riding reindeers and harken the herald angels with all your might.

Possible? Yea, sure. Easy? Hell, no. But choices exist in any kind of weather, whatever the forecast, however deep the snow drifts. Try riding the happy sled for awhile.