As I write, snow is clinging to the windows.
It clings to the trees, the roads, my car's windshield, the sidewalk outside my apartment, and all I can do is hope it disappears by some magical feat. I think maybe if I close the blinds it will melt by dinnertime. But the weather app on my phone tells me the snow is here to stay.
Fifteen years ago, I would've prayed for a day like today.
I would wake up at 6 am, throw open my bedroom curtains and peer outside with hope that the ground would be completely covered in over a foot of snow dense enough to make snowballs. I would run into my mother's bedroom, shake her awake and beg her to turn on the news.
And there I would sit for the next hour until the news announced my school closed, beginning the absolute best day of every child's life: a snow day.
I'd dig out my snow pants, warmest gloves and winter hat with the pom-pom on top, and spend the next eight hours sliding down the most perfect sledding hill in Medical Lake. (In hindsight, said "sledding hill" was someone's farmland, but I'm sure they didn't mind us kids finding a secondary purpose for it.)
We shared sleds, long and circular alike, and walked up and down and up and down the hill until our legs were aching and our noses were red from the frigid air. We didn't notice though. We were too busy having fun.
Even after the fun ended and I was inside my warm house once again, I would close my eyes tight and wish that tomorrow was just the same.
But that was almost two decades ago now, and winter doesn't feel the same anymore.
Now, I open my blinds at 6 am, hoping that the weather reports were wrong. Hoping that instead of the predicted 10 inches of snow, Mother Nature decided to cut us a break.
I make my morning coffee and scroll through various apps until it's time to leave for the day.
I begrudgingly put on boots and a stiff winter jacket to gear up for the tundra that awaits outside my door. I cross my gloved fingers and hope that the streets are clear of ice, my car will start, and I can make it to work on time.
Behind the wheel of my car, I wait for the defrost to kick in and mentally prepare myself to drive only eight minutes to work. I also think about how slowly and carefully I will have to walk just to get from the parking lot to the office.
Is this how my mom felt when I was growing up? If her commute from Medical Lake to downtown Spokane was treacherous in the winter, she did a great job of keeping it to herself and ensuring that I wasn't worried for her safety while I played the day away under my grandparents' supervision.
I was none the wiser. Little 10-year-old me had no idea that someday, beloved snow days would turn into anxiety-inducing days of worry. Worry for myself, my family and for the people who can't find shelter from the cold.
I make it to work on time after some white-knuckled driving, shed my layers and shield my eyes from the window. If I can't see it, it doesn't exist.
But a part of me wishes my heart was still filled with that hope I held during childhood. I want to jump into the snow without a care in the world, make a snow angel, look up at the sky and let the snowflakes hit my face and dust my eyelashes.
So next time we get a winter storm — when the first flurries fall from a gray sky — I'll run outside and feel like a child again. I'll tap into the hope I once felt and wish for snow again. I'll put on my stiff winter jacket and smile while I scrape ice from my windshield because, to paraphrase John Steinbeck, what good is the warmth of the sun without the cold of winter to give it meaning? ♦
