I need it to snow.

Today we got our cards off, with a little something special. The first batch, anyway. We’re finishing the second batch tomorrow morning. There was a feeling of great accomplishment in getting them off, but somehow also a feeling of things being slightly off kilter—things not being exactly right. I haven’t been able to shake a hint of that feeling for months, now. I need it to snow.

The other night, I watched a movie that takes place over a span of three years (The Upside of Anger. Good flick). One of the ways they show the passage of time is the change of seasons, so there’s a beautiful snow scene in the first half. Made me want it to snow.

Snow was half of my attraction to New England (another quarter being fall, and another quarter summer…). Snow is inherently relaxing to watch. It falls at its own pace, not driving like rain, but wafting, slow and methodical with an intentionality all its own. It never hurries, even in a driven wind. It will rush sideways on a big gust of wind, but never fall down any faster. Like a sponge over a blackboard, clearing all the cluttered, tangled thoughts that constrict your mind when you’re thinking too much. It’s like shuffling that magic Etch-a-Sketch, erasing the multiple right-angled scribbles and jumbles to restore a pristine, blank, grey slate. I’ve been thinking way too much, way too hard. I need it to snow.

When I was a kid, snow meant money. With every snow day I was guaranteed at least three sidewalks to shovel, if I got out early and was willing to keep it up, charging early for all-day-service. Snow days don’t come anymore in the workaday world, but I still get a feeling of exhilaration in waking up to a snow. And I love looking up with the kids with breathless anticipation that school might be cancelled, watching the website boards that are so much better than the radio stations I used to have to track as a kid. Ah, the age of instant gratification. But if you ask them, I bet they need it to snow, too.

I need it to snow, to cover up the chaos internal and external. I need it to snow, to get back that clean, uncluttered feeling, bringing the world back to that state of tabula raza, where all things are possible and nothing is a given; where magic can occur, and does on a regular basis; where we can face, unafraid, the plans that we’ve made, walking in a winter wonderland. Are you listening?

The forecast for around here calls for cool with sunny skies through Christmas, which is going to make it pretty hard to find a snowman we can pretend is Parson Brown. Which is pretty disappointing.

Three days til’ Christmas. What do you need?