About snow.

So yes, this is a delayed blog post. And yes, it is snowing. The two are only connected in that I spent most of yesterday feeling rather ill, and am blaming it on the extraordinary amounts of snow currently abounding Hartford. And when I say extraordinary, I mean up to 3 feet's worth.

It's no secret that I love the snow. Last Friday's trip to the park found me literally up to my neck in the stuff when I decided to make a snow angel and sank through the layers like a stone. Even after being back for over 3 weeks, I still run my hands through the piles lining the sidewalk, and make snow balls and minuscule snowmen, and write little messages for those who might follow me. My walk to school is simply breathtaking, through streets of big, old, distinctly American houses, covered in snow and fringed with icicles.
There are downsides, of course, the main one being the freezing. Noon today got up to 1C, the highest temperature we've had in a long time. As I write, it's approximately -8C outside, and that is comparatively quite warm. This freezing has meant that the piles lining the sidewalk are now very clearly composed of layers of ice, snow, more ice, and snow again. Hence why the pictures of the park trip are mostly of me on my knees: when there's an inch of ice underneath 5 inches of snow, which is itself covering another 2 foot of snow, walking becomes surprisingly difficult. Which is fine when you're out to play in the park, but less fun when walking to school. Even less fun were the few days when the temperature stayed stubbernly around -10C, and no one cleared the sidewalks: Pu and I made a video of our desperate attempts to get from the Law School, to the pharmacy, and back to our house. This normal 20 minute trip took us over an hour.

Yet I still love the snow: an obvious give-away of the fact that I don't have to shovel my own driveway yet. There's this little stretch on my walk to school where the world seems to change to black and white- even when the sky is clear. The trees are striking contrasts of black and white, with the snow collected on their dark limbs or in clumps in the higher branches of the pines. The houses look like they've stepped out of It's a Wonderful Life, and the Law School in the distance is grey. Other than that, the world is a great expanse of white, reaching up to the sky. There's a washed out traffic sign of some description there, which works to reinforce the illusion. At night, the Law Campus looks like Narnia, especially with its penchant for Victorian-style street lamps and high, gothic windows. The light really does shine out yellow, especially when it snows, and the whole place looks nothing more than the painted backdrop for some fantastical romance movie. Maybe that's why I love the snow so much: it really does transport you into another world.


JJ