First snow of the season, and the first melt

I wrote about the impending snowfall here.

Nine years ago I was a wee little boy -- relatively speaking -- looking down from my dorm windows at the heavy snowfall on Halloween night. Three years ago I was in grad school, it snowed a week ahead of Thanksgiving, and on thanksgiving the ground was still thick with snow.

It snowed yesterday, and the day before, here in Boston. We were expecting a light dusting at most, nothing that would stick. Surprise surprise it was quite a heavy fall, it covered the cars and the roofs, the trees too. Two days later there's snow all over, it's melting since the temperatures have caught up but ohh yeahh winter is here and the fall is over, we know that for sure now. And now tomorrow, we wait for tomorrow when the darkness take hold an hour earlier. Scary, exciting, wild interesting times. Can we have fewer interesting times please?

By the end of the day today it's looking like all of it will melt, and we're not scheduled for another fall for the next few weeks. It's like the weather wanted to leave a calling card and show up later.

Not excited about this snow, not at all.

The one thing that' great about the whole situation is...this is one of the more ridiculous claims but I say this with a hundred percent earnestness and honesty...how great fresh snow smells, and how bright it makes things. Because all the light's reflected away instead of being absorbed by the street or the sidewalk, the nights and days really light up...snow blindness is a thing after all, I gave trouble sleeping in the mornings and nights because of the snowbrightness. And the smell...it's low-key, but smells like...fresh water, maybe something grassy, can't describe it. It's great though.

The other great part of snow, the snowfall itself is how quiet everything gets. The traffic slows, the honks disappear and the background noise there is gets absorbed by the snow. It's a quiet winter wonderland, makes you feel one with the surroundings, want to connect with your neighbors and talk and just...celebrate...something. Snow makes me more social, bizzare but true. It's not about the cold, nothiing about the darkness. Perhaps it's how bright everything gets compared to how dark the days are that I see snow as a savior? Regardless, ahh snow how I love thee. When yer falling and softly packed and not a bother yet.

And then it melts and refreezes and that's how you get black ice, slippery street, wet mush puddles and a great gross gastly mess that nobody should have to deal with. That's how you know you've had enough winter and start imagining moving to Florida or California, it becomes clear that moving to Canada is never an option thanks to the weather. Unless things get really really really very bad.

First snowfall of the season and my spirits are still high, something worth celebrating!

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