Snow

Single Snow Crystal

We are expecting our first significant snow of this winter in Boston. This changes everything for me as a homeowner. Accommodations must be made to avoid slippery sidewalks and steps. The routines of everyday life are disrupted. This is the beauty of living in an environment with seasonal changes. It makes me think.

I know people who abhor winters. I do not. I have learned through some rigorous winter experiences that winters are tremendous teachers. They have shown me indisputably that I am indeed changing as I age. As I lift a shovel of snow, I can calibrate the change in my muscle strength. This does not frighten me. I shoveled snow when I was nearly dead from the lack of an immune system in the snowy winter of 1996. That was twelve years ago. I have been able to change and adjust since then. This realization fuels my optimism.

Snow is water in another form. I am a being whose form changes with the seasons and time. Watching the cycle of pristine whiteness to sooty slush to rivulets running down gutters in thaw every year is a worthwhile meditation. This is the process of new-to-old which pervades all natural phenomena, including my own single human life.