Thursday, January 18, 2007

Winter Wonderland

Yesterday it was cold! Really cold, Michigan cold. There was ice on my car windows that i had to use a ice scraper to remove (actually ice has been happening for about a week now), and my hands nearly froze while i was doing it. Remember ice scrapers? Remember way back when we used to wear gloves, those cloth things that cover your hands to help keep them from getting too cold? It was comforting.

I loved hearing that crack and scratch of ice breaking from the window again, and i loved looking around seeing at least some (altho there should be more) snow on the ground. I liked feeling really cold, such that everyone walks briskly and pulls themselves deeper inside their coats. It was great seeing plumes of peoples' breathe rising from their mouths and into the cold sky. It felt like winter again, and it felt right.

Some of the young kids in my class talk about global warming, and they seem so very aware of it. When I was that age, what did i know about such things? I took snow and all that for granted, and just enjoyed it. Some of these kids probably barely remember snow, and I think it's kinda sad. Looking back, it seems like such a fundamental part of my childhood, tobagonning, snowball fights, ice skating, building snowmen and forts, snow piled way high to great white mounds, and these kids are being robbed of all the joys of winter, ya know?

It just felt so cold and nice yesterday, and it was great. It didn't, for the first time in a long time, feel like we are all victims of some kind of eerie millennial post-nuclear fall out, greenhouse gas syndrome that seems to have descended on us all so rapidly (although it clearly seems that there is much we should be doing to stem this). It just felt like beautiful winter in Michigan again