Flashback Friday: Baby, it's cold outside. Wanna snuggle?

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.
~ One Hundred Years of Solitude

The First Time I Saw Snow: An Essay

Immediately I recognized it.

Cold. White. Wondrous. Cascading from the sky. Showering down on me. Making the landscape of Park City, Utah that much more gorgeous.

This was it. Snow. I looked around for enough on the ground to make a snow angel. Or a snow man. Or a snow ball. Anything.

Snow. It was awesome.

And I was 35 years old.

Can you say native Floridian?

~~~~~~~~~~~

We were in Park City for a business function of the mister's -- his company was having their annual company meeting and Park City was the place. Although it was early spring, I had high hopes of finally seeing up close and personal the mystical white snow that had eluded me for so long.

It wasn't that I avoided snow. The opportunity to experience it just had never presented itself before.

Oh, I'd had several near misses:
* The ski trip to North Carolina with my church high school youth group.
Fake snow on the slopes.
* The ski trip to North Carolina as a chaparone for our church high school youth group.
Fake snow on the slopes.
* The smattering of flakes that fell one freaky cold Christmas eve in Orlando, where I was spending time with family. Don't count that.

So can imagine my delight when we drove our rental car out of Salt Lake City in route to our hotel and I saw the landscape covered in white. That was only heightened by the flurries that flew about the next day as I hilariously and spectacularly unsuccessfully took a beginners ski class.

Ooooh. That was bad. Really bad. Not pretty. Needless to say, I became an expert at apres ski very quickly.

However it wasn't enough to dampen my spirits as I came face to face with the only aspect of Mother Nature's bounty I really yearned for.

Snow.

I got in it, around it, through it. And threw it. Happily. Big kid. I had a lot of time and antics to make up for.

Fantastic.

I know it's a pain to live in for months at a time. It's ugly when tinged with the soot and grime of everyday life. It's problematic when driving.

But in that moment, when it was pristine and pure and gracious -- it was beautiful.

Well worth the wait.