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This is what happens when it snows:
Usually when it snows, I get excited. I look out the window every few moments to see if it's snowing any harder than it was a few moments ago and hoping a few moments later that next time I look out the window there will be more inches of it on the ground. From my experience, it only snows at night. So where the snow is most visible is in the light of the streetlamps, because that's where the most light is coming from is the streetlamps. Same thing for when it rains, when there is fog, and there are mosquitoes. I prefer it when there is little to no wind so that the snowflakes reach the ground as soon as possible. Plus I really don't like wind to begin with.
Usually when it snows here, everyone gets excited. Every time. After it snows, you hear everyone's war stories. About how they almost slipped and fell, how there was snow on the ground when they woke up and how they dealt with that fact. How there was snow all over the place. There are headlines in the day after's Newsday about how much it snowed and how great it was and how difficult, how much joy and distress it caused. And the people in your classes tell tales of woe. They go, "There was snow on the ground today. Cold snow." And they say how much colder their snow was than the person's before, how much more slick and slushy theirs was and how many more shovels and how much more traffic was involved. They bitch about their classes being canceled or not being canceled. But then, the weather is always a hot topic.
Not so long ago, maybe five or six years ago, the morning after it snowed, you'd wake up early to the sound of shovels scraping the pavement. It was such a great sound, because it meant that school was probably canceled and that maybe you could shovel snow off of some sucker's driveway for a buck or two because he or she thought it was adorable what you were doing. And as a sound itself, it was isolated in the distance from whence it came. It was like hearing your heartbeat in a pillow and intermittent because whoever was shoveling needed to rest once in a while. It was peaceful and winter.
Now you wake up to the invading grate of your idiot neighbor's snow mower, deafened only by his misguided sense of self worth. He's running this machine across the entire neighborhood's sidewalks because it gets 70 miles per gallon. He's doing a service. An unrelenting service. And you can see the thought bubble over his head. It says, "Oh boy. I'm helping people by being a moron. I may only get the chance to use this thing once a year, but at least it runs on crude oil." And it's not only him, but at least 20 others within 2 blocks, because everyone's an idiot. "If there's such a thing as global warming, then why am I using a gas-powered plow to clear snow on the one day a year that it in fact does snow? I live on Long Island."
But there's that. And there when it's quiet. When it's quiet and there's snow on the ground, it's real quiet. Super quiet because the snow absorbs the quiet sounds. You can hear and see your breathing, and maybe there's something making noise miles away. But in your immediate area, it's quiet. It's beautiful actually, and it's my favorite part about snow. It's what I really love. When there's nothing and no one around and it's just you and a good foot of snow on the ground, you hold your breath and there's no wind, it's an unmatched silence. The sky is pink if it's nighttime and white if it's day.
Maybe the next day it'll get sunny and warmer. But hopefully not, because snow's decay is tragic. All other forms of precipitation are ugly from the get go. But to watch once beautiful snow turn to so much disgusting, grey slush caked on mud flaps and tire wells is never easy. And to see a sheet of snow fall from the eaves of a house or from the branches of a tree is like watching a horse trip over its front legs. But at least you won't have to hear the pissing contests about whose snow was colder and your idiot neighbor will move on to other means of annoying you.
I mean, there are more things about the snow that I like and a few things I dislike. Such as when snow gets your socks wet from stepping in too much snow without proper footwear. And sometimes snow gets out of hand and becomes avalanches, but I don't worry about that too often.
When I stay up all night, I hear my mom's alarm clock go off at 6:15. It's one of those things.
Usually when it snows, I get excited. I look out the window every few moments to see if it's snowing any harder than it was a few moments ago and hoping a few moments later that next time I look out the window there will be more inches of it on the ground. From my experience, it only snows at night. So where the snow is most visible is in the light of the streetlamps, because that's where the most light is coming from is the streetlamps. Same thing for when it rains, when there is fog, and there are mosquitoes. I prefer it when there is little to no wind so that the snowflakes reach the ground as soon as possible. Plus I really don't like wind to begin with.
Usually when it snows here, everyone gets excited. Every time. After it snows, you hear everyone's war stories. About how they almost slipped and fell, how there was snow on the ground when they woke up and how they dealt with that fact. How there was snow all over the place. There are headlines in the day after's Newsday about how much it snowed and how great it was and how difficult, how much joy and distress it caused. And the people in your classes tell tales of woe. They go, "There was snow on the ground today. Cold snow." And they say how much colder their snow was than the person's before, how much more slick and slushy theirs was and how many more shovels and how much more traffic was involved. They bitch about their classes being canceled or not being canceled. But then, the weather is always a hot topic.
Not so long ago, maybe five or six years ago, the morning after it snowed, you'd wake up early to the sound of shovels scraping the pavement. It was such a great sound, because it meant that school was probably canceled and that maybe you could shovel snow off of some sucker's driveway for a buck or two because he or she thought it was adorable what you were doing. And as a sound itself, it was isolated in the distance from whence it came. It was like hearing your heartbeat in a pillow and intermittent because whoever was shoveling needed to rest once in a while. It was peaceful and winter.
Now you wake up to the invading grate of your idiot neighbor's snow mower, deafened only by his misguided sense of self worth. He's running this machine across the entire neighborhood's sidewalks because it gets 70 miles per gallon. He's doing a service. An unrelenting service. And you can see the thought bubble over his head. It says, "Oh boy. I'm helping people by being a moron. I may only get the chance to use this thing once a year, but at least it runs on crude oil." And it's not only him, but at least 20 others within 2 blocks, because everyone's an idiot. "If there's such a thing as global warming, then why am I using a gas-powered plow to clear snow on the one day a year that it in fact does snow? I live on Long Island."
But there's that. And there when it's quiet. When it's quiet and there's snow on the ground, it's real quiet. Super quiet because the snow absorbs the quiet sounds. You can hear and see your breathing, and maybe there's something making noise miles away. But in your immediate area, it's quiet. It's beautiful actually, and it's my favorite part about snow. It's what I really love. When there's nothing and no one around and it's just you and a good foot of snow on the ground, you hold your breath and there's no wind, it's an unmatched silence. The sky is pink if it's nighttime and white if it's day.
Maybe the next day it'll get sunny and warmer. But hopefully not, because snow's decay is tragic. All other forms of precipitation are ugly from the get go. But to watch once beautiful snow turn to so much disgusting, grey slush caked on mud flaps and tire wells is never easy. And to see a sheet of snow fall from the eaves of a house or from the branches of a tree is like watching a horse trip over its front legs. But at least you won't have to hear the pissing contests about whose snow was colder and your idiot neighbor will move on to other means of annoying you.
I mean, there are more things about the snow that I like and a few things I dislike. Such as when snow gets your socks wet from stepping in too much snow without proper footwear. And sometimes snow gets out of hand and becomes avalanches, but I don't worry about that too often.
When I stay up all night, I hear my mom's alarm clock go off at 6:15. It's one of those things.
