“Snow. Snow. Snow! Temperature is expected to drop 27 degrees tonight. Goodbye Fall, welcome Snow! It is my second time of seeing snow first-hand, so pardon my inexplicable excitement.” That was the message alert I sent to my friends last weekend when the sky opened up to usher in the first Snow of the season in Washington D.C.
Oh! the snow, the beautiful snow,
Filling the sky and earth below,
Over the housetops, over the street,
Over the heads of the people you meet.
Dancing,
Flirting,
Skimming along.
(-Thomas J. Watson)
God is good. That is one of the thoughts that race through mind as I watched the early morning raindrops form into snowflakes. Slowly, softly and beautifully, one after another, they made their way gracefully to cover the bare earth with their essence. “To appreciate the beauty of a snow flake, it is necessary to stand out in the cold.” And yes, off to the street I went to see the Snowflakes hanging on bare trees, to see the streets glow with the radiance of Snow. How can I explain the excitement that filled my heart as I took a long walk through the streets to bask (not literally) in the beauty and splendor of God’s creation?
Winter season here is Harmattan season in the part of the world where I grew up. And Harmattan is not snow, cold and slippery streets but morning dew, afternoon heat and dusty streets. As the writer, Vladimir Nabokov, once pointed out "Genius is an African who dreams up snow." The closest most people from the part of Africa I grew up in have ever seen of Snow is on Television, or the pictures published in Newspapers/Magazines, or the novels we read, or by the words of mouth of people who have seen it first hand. It is like a mystery. Well, it was a mystery to me until I got the opportunity to feel the ice wash over my face. And oh! It is so white, so soft and so sweet (excuse my exaggeration here).
Long after it has stopped snowing, the flakes form different shapes where they accumulated during their sojourn to mother earth- on trees, flowers, grasses, driveway or any objects they met. Until the weather warms up a little to melt them away, they stick by satisfied that they have accomplished something significant- one the human mind have no intellectual capacity to control.
However, I share the above experience with much caution, keeping in mind that as there are two sides to every coin, so are there two sides of Snowfall experience. There at times the Snow comes in mildly or with a storm, depending on the magnitude of its impact. For example, while it snowed all calmly in the Capital city, what was described as a powerful snowstorm swept across the West, causing snarled traffic and delay in school resumption.
Does this take away the beauty of snowfall? Maybe not, because to an African seeing Snow for the first time, there will always be a moment of awe for God and the way He fathomed out the diversity in our world and weather. Some of us hope to take the cold it brings on so well, we will bundle up, drink hot chocolate and stay in love with the Season. Let it snow!
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