Those Wonderful Two or Three Inches

Earliest snowfall

I’m notoriously bad with keeping a pulse on the weather. I never know if it’s going to be sunny and in the mid 50s or raining in the low 40s. I bring an umbrella out with me if it’s raining, but God help me if it hasn’t already started when I’ve gone out the door.

So imagine my surprise yesterday when I saw someone come into my office covered in white flakes of fluffy goodness. It was official: we were getting our first substantial accumulation of snow for the season!

I almost wrote year instead of season, even though obviously 2010 began with winter. We never do leave that school mentality, do we?

With child-like glee, I took a break from work and brought my cell phone out with me to find the clearest view so I could take some pictures. What I saw brought a huge smile to my face: thick semi-circular objects falling lazily to the ground, engulfing the landscape in purity. This was the fresh first fall, before things like car exhaust and mud mixed with it to dirty and sullen the landscape.

Not quite a winter wonderland, but it'll do.

This happens to me every year. There’s something about that first lazy, gentle snowfall that brings me great peace of mind and makes me optimistic about the coming months. With few exceptions, it’s never an overwhelming and dangerous deluge, though unprepared drivers often find navigating it precarious. Minus a few fender-benders, it serves as a delightful surprise.

At 5:00pm, I took my leave for the day. As I left my building, I noticed the effect of daylight savings: evening had already fallen, and we were at the part of the year where I spend the vast majority of the daytime indoors, only seeing the Sun during my brief excursion from home to work.

Then I looked around at the snow that had accumulated and was sloshing under my work shoes. I felt my socks get moist and regretted not reading the weather report; otherwise, I would have worn my boots. The air was damp and heavy, filling my nose with mucous and making my head heavy. I thought about the forthcoming memos and e-mails about hand sanitizers and limiting contact, dreaded the annoying pool of water that develops at my desk after I get settled for the day, and worried about the ever-increasing energy costs of Winter via the British-owned local monopoly no politician is brave enough to go up against.

“Christ,” I thought to myself. “I can’t wait for April to come and be rid of this s***.”