It snowed pretty much all this morning, and so I was eager to do the weird thing that I do when is snows.
Namely, bundle up and go for a totally epic walk in the snow, and take random cool pictures.
Now, I realize this is probably a very odd thing to do, but somehow I enjoy it. It gives me a rare feeling of adventurousness and awesomeness that I don’t get many other places. Looking down at yourself covered in flakey bits of ice is a joy pretty much unparalleled in winterness.
Of course, the awesome gets multiplied by about 1000 if you’re wearing what I was wearing today, which was a big floufy pink skirt, long blue peacoat, purple scarf, wildy colorful gloves, and a pink cloche with a bow.
Walking around in the snow is way more fun in a long skirt. Plus you get really weird looks from people in cars driving past, which is just another bonus.
So yeah, I walked out the door to go for my walk, and pretty much made a huge rookie mistake right off. Namely, I was so excited to be outside in the snow, that I started skipping. I’m pretty sure you know what happened next.
Yes, I fell on my butt. So what else is new?
Picking myself up, I chided myself gently for being a complete and total idiot for skipping, and went sedately on my way.
There’s something faintly magical about going for a walk in a snowstorm. The light is all greyish and pretty, and there’s wee bits of fluffy white stuff falling from the sky. Nobody else is out walking at this point because who wants to go for a walk in a snowstorm, so you get to be the lucky one to put the first footprints onto a barren white stretch of sidewalk. Don’t tell me you’ve never been totally thrilled by that before.
Virgin sidewalk, ready to be walked on.
There’s a sense of shyness about walking on unbroken snow too. You wonder, “I really want to be the first one to walk on here…but it’s absolutely perfect without steps on it. Should I ruin perfection to suit my own silly needs?” and then you’re like “heck yes” and you walk on it.
So I walked down the street and took a picture of this tree because it was pretty.
Then I felt really really bad because it made me look like a total creeper, because if you were driving by in a car it totally looked like I was just snapping a random picture of the house. Which made me feel sorry for the people inside the house who were currently creeped out by the hippie taking pictures of their house. Which is sad because I’m not a hippie at all.
Then I kept walking, only now I had a destination in mind. There’s a little dead end street that turns off of our street, about 2/3 of the way up our street, and it is very very photogenic. Lots of trees, and a little cliff/ditch/rock thing at the end that is prettier in real life than it sounds to hear me describe it. So I kept walking, and I got to this little street, and I was looking down it, and I was like “this would be a cool shot” so I walked out in the middle of the road (it’s a dead end. There weren’t even any tire tracks. I’m not suicidal.) and took a picture.
See, told you it was pretty. I proceeded to walk down the road, not realizing at the beginning that it was pretty much one giant sheet of ice. Sadly, I realized that about halfway down. Gulp.
At the bottom, I took some random pics of the mini ravine…
Having accomplished what I wandered onto the cul-de-sac to do, I wandered back up, feeling a bit dorkier but still pretty awesome. Hopefully the residents of the dead end weren’t too confused. If they saw me at all.
Finally, I got to go where I had been wanting to go the whole time. Saving the best for last, I had put it off till the end.
This place was the wee park on our street thats not even really a park, just a bit of ground with some trees, paths, and statues. In the snow it looked really cool though, and I had a couple “squee, NARNIA” moments.
On the way there, I realized my feet aren’t actually as big as I thought they were.
My foot on the left, someone else’s on the right. Of course, the other option is that that person has totally huge feet and my feet are still sort of large, but I’m going with “yay my feet are proportionally smaller than I thought!”
Anyways, once I made it into the park, I took a whole lot of random pictures, and felt very Middle Earth/Narnia-ish (ignoring the cars going by behind me)….
OMG, it legit IS Narnia!
Prettiest orange tree with snow ever!!
That feeling lasted exactly until I saw this.
Which made me laugh much much more than I probably should have.
Anywho, this convinced me that I was indeed not in Narnia, and I decided to go home as I was a bit chilled and rather damp.
On my way back, I saw in the distance another pedestrian and I was all like “ooh, someone else who likes snow too!”
As said person got closer I was like “oh wow, you are so cool”.
This guy was bundled up, and I mean REALLY bundled up, head to toe. He had on ski pants, boots, a parka, gloves, a hat, and a stripey bandana covering up his ENTIRE face. This was held up by random strings coming off of his hat. It was AMAZING. Overkill, as it really wasn’t that cold, but still beautiful. I was tempted to stop him and ask to take his picture, but thought that might have been rude.
As he passed me he said “Good day!” and a little part of my heart squeed and I was like “hiiiii…” and we walked past each other. I then wanted to run back and start up a conversation about awesome with him, but decided that would be dorky and weird.
Then I realized something else. The two of us, the lone pedestrians out in the snowy wonderland, are the real Canadians. We’re the ones who are happy when a snow is forecast, the ones who squee whenever we see snow falling from the sky, and the ones who don’t gripe about how sucky the weather is.
It could be he’s nothing like this and he just had to get somewhere in a snowstorm, but that’s the way I feel.
Sometimes you need to realize something. Snow is not a curse. Snow is beautiful. The next time you’re kvetching about how terrible snow is, and how nasty it makes driving places, you need to take a look around you. Look at the trees blanketed in a layer of white. Look at the rooftops turned into fields of powdered sugar. Look at the lawns and sidewalks and cars, evened out and perfected by nature’s gentle caress. Look at the wee white flakes falling from the sky. Marvel at how there are thousands upon thousands upon thousands, and each one is completely unique. Appreciate the unique beauty that is only present while watching snow fall. Remember how you felt as a child, how you loved watching the snow. Think on why this has changed. Try to go back, and experience the joy and wonder you felt then.
Then pull out into the road, and hope to goodness the salt truck has been by.
