Like all people who have been raised in the Canadian Prairies, I bear one love/hate sensation that returns every year for at least 5 months. Personally, this relationship is mostly defined by love.
I love snow.
I hate it when it first arrives, but it grows on me throughout the season - until it is, at this point, absolutely stunning. To the point that I forget what grass looks like until it finally breaks through its white prison cell in April or May. I love the way it sounds beneath your feet as you walk through a field of fresh sparkling crystals, and the way that it absorbs sound. The world becomes still, covered in a blanket, slumbering. Beautiful in its sleep.
I love the promise of snow-shoeing, and cross-country skiing, and skating, and sledding, and watching hockey, and walking around town the see the ice sculptures, and attending winter festivals, and drinking at an ice bar, and curling (and just watching curling with my grandmother), and making forts with my god children (please never let them age, for my sake). I love the memory of making piles of snowballs to throw that some unsuspecting victim - hiding the pile in my backyard for just the moment when I will unleash my terror on my neighbour or my mother.
When there is snow on the ground, there is a reason to be outside.
