There is a memory I have of snow. Crisp and dry and smelling of ozone. I was young, living in the first house I remember and my father and I were building an igloo. A very small one mind you, one that only I could fit into. We built it around me, and with the placement of the last piece of the top the snow blocks became lined in silver, like clouds mere centimeters from my face. The small space began to warm as I breathed, and I felt safe, and happy. My father poked his head into the entrance, I smiled seeing his beaming face, and with his large head covering the small doorway more light was blotted out. The ceiling of my dome looked strange, blue and silver light, like stars or glow worms on the ceiling of some dark cave. Soon, my brother destroyed my sanctum, and of course I cried, but we all laughed later inside with warm drinks and soup. I learned that the white snow is fragile, but strong, built of unique lattice work on a microscopic scale that the helps explain the mysteries of the observable universe. There is beauty in this fragility, how light plays through the many crystals, how it changes with only a little application of heat, with how much joy it is to see those flakes falling from the sky silently.
Snow is a means to see nature at work, what we can see and what we can not. It play with physics, biology, chemistry, psychology, literature, geology, philosophy, all means of understanding the world we live in can be seen when the air grows cold, and the clouds descend, and the first flake falls to the ground..silent, yet as loud as thunder. Snow is a study..cloaked in white.
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