If you have ever watched Irving Berlin's White Christmas, then maybe you'll understand exactly how I feel about snow. For someone who doesn't live far up north where snow becomes a nuisance, it's something that makes your inner child jump out and completely go crazy. One cold winter evening, that's exactly what happened. I was texting everyone going crazy and just couldn't help but smile as I looked out the window watching it fall slowly in the darkness, each snowflake dancing in the cold night air and landing on the windowsill.
Like everyone else, I dream of a White Christmas. Getting to wake up on Christmas morning and looking out the window to see a white blanket of snow covering the landscape, having a snowball fight in my own backyard, and building a pretty funky looking snowman. I want to take a handful of snow and throw it up in the air and watch the cold white powder slowly settle all around me. As the famous song says it so perfectly, "I want to wash my hands, my face, and hair in snow."
I woke up the following morning warm under my covers trying to ignore the light starting to come in through the window. But I suddenly remembered it had snowed the night before, and like a five-year-old, on Christmas morning I jumped out of bed and looked out the window to see everything was covered in white. It looked like something out of a postcard. I couldn't help but smile, it was beautiful, the landscape was completely transformed and I felt like I was in a completely different place.
I snatched my gloves and coat and ran out the door to start taking pictures, it would only be a matter of hours before this sudden winter wonderland would melt. Our newest additions, the adorable puppies Aspen and Oso, kept jumping and rolling around in the snow. They looked like two little polar bear cubs chasing and pushing each other and burying their faces in the cold snow. Now the kittens on the other hand were not so pleased with the strange white powder. They didn't venture as far out, not enjoying their paws getting wet. I on the other hand wanted to capture every bit of the beautiful transformation before it was all gone.
In a way, I don't think the camera captured the true beauty the snow had on the landscape. You could look at one thing covered in white and see how lovely it looked, but It wasn't just one object covered in snow that I found beautiful. It was standing in one spot and slowly turning, looking at everything around me both far and near. It was the pasture covered in a blanket of white with the trees in the back dusted in white and how the fence post had snow on only one side. How it was bright but the clouds still covered the sun and how the snow sounded under my boots every time I stepped.
It was a moment where I stood perfectly still just looking out and listening. Perfect silence, not one bird chirped, the wind didn't blow, the trees didn't move. It was complete stillness like someone had frozen time itself. That was the moment I believed to be the most beautiful. Where you just can't think of anything else in the world and you get this sudden sense of peace. You forget all of your troubles, worries, and stress and have this moment of pure bliss. There's no distractions, no rush, no chaos. At that moment you seem to find yourself, even if it is for only a moment.
It's in these moments that we need to remember that even in our busy and chaotic lives, we need to sometimes stop and stand still for a moment and just forget all our troubles and listen to pure silence because sometimes in those moments of silence we hear the most important sound, ourselves. Without ourselves, we are lost. Snow doesn't fall quickly, it takes its time and slowly makes its way to the surface, each individual flake unique in its own way. In a way we are all snowflakes, each person unique and sometimes we need to slow down and take our time. Like snow, we will reach our destination in our own good time.
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