Where Is The Snow?

We have cold, we have frozen, we're all bundled up, but where is the snow? There is something extra lonely about a winter without snow, about a hard frozen ground with the debris of summer and fall projects on it that make me long for the beauty that the snow brings. The quiet that the insulating layer of white holds. The joy of bundling and trudging and pulling out your true winter gear. I feel like we're still just playing at winter right now, my snowpants in storage. I of course do not miss driving in the stuff, or being careful not to slip on the ice, it's certainly safer to have bare roads, but I miss the calming beauty.

I feel as though it would be somehow easier to be this sad if there were blankets of snow around me. The landscape looks so barren, and well... dead right now. The solitude of winter is helped along by the whiteness, the reflection of light, the hope that it will all melt. A little bit of snow feels like a cozy blanket covering all of us. It feels like a comfort at an uncomfortable time. Bring on a blizzard, bring on the trudging, bring on the cold, bring on the bundling! Remind me of a primitive time of survival, remind me how to hunker down into my seed catalogs and dream of springtime. Hold my hand through this sadness, just bring me some snow to fall into, to lick off my mittens, to knit for, to throw snowballs in, to have a child's wonder watching it fall out my window. Trap me in my house for a fortnight, give me reasons to stay in pjs all day. Let me feel awe when I see an animal track, help me get my snowshoes on! Bring on the snow! Let it fall, allow it to cover us, let it hold my hand, allow me to ice skate with her once again.