A few of my favorite things

December 3, 2013

In Salinas, I always hated cloudy days, which was pretty much every frikkin day. Mom called them silver. Whatever. Every day was overcast and gray and ugly and it made me all of those things too.

But, oh, cloudy days in Utah are different. The clouds almost always bring snow.

I have never been a fan of shoes or cold weather and bundling up. You used to tease me for wearing flip-flops every single day, but in California, I could. Utah is different and I have discovered that I will do it all—the bundling and shoes and surviving the cold—for snow.

Grace and I are walking home from church, chatting about the—uh—certain symmetrical qualities that create a pleasant aesthetic effect on a particular boy’s face in our ward, when big fluffy white flakes start drifting around us. I stop walking. She turns around, impatient.

“Snow??”

Grace rolls her eyes. “Haven’t you ever seen it snow before?”

I shake my head at her. Her eyes widen. “Really?”

And then she’s quiet. We both take in the drifting sparkles and flurries that embrace the ground in a giant frosty quilt and cover the trees’ stark nakedness, coating anything that will hold still long enough with glistening icy crystals.

My first thought, with today being our would-be four year anniversary, is that You would love it. You would stand out here with me for hours, in total awe of this event that we've missed out on our entire lives. I can't linger in my head with You for long right now, though. Not with what I did last week.

I reach out, catching a few snowflakes on my fingers. The intricacy of the delicate patterns lasts only a moment before melting from the heat of my skin.

It is amazing. Little water drops that are so tiny and frozen that they just flutter down, soft, light, gentle, happy, pure, and they make me all of those things too.