Snow - What is it Good For?

If there's one thing we've been getting a huge amount of these past few winters - too much, in some people's opinion - it's snow. The fluffy white substance that has always been such a classic, defining representation of winter has been in abundance and doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon; even normally snow-free states in the southern half of the country are falling prey to decidedly more northern climates, albeit without all of the snow plows to get rid of it quickly. In the meantime, all of the northern states are continuing to get hit by snowstorm after snowstorm (sometimes within days of each other), leading to those all too familiar white mountains of plowed snow in every parking lot.

For kids, all of this snow is a cause for celebration. Snowmen, snowball fights, sledding and snow angels are all the rage of the winter season, making it even more fun than ever to play outside. As if that wasn't enough, snow days always result in more free time.

Adults, on the other hand, might be inclined to look at it differently. They might groan at the sight of fresh snow out the window and describe the winter season with such adjectives as "barren wasteland," "dead," "dangerous weather conditions," "stark," "cold," and/or even "depressing." It becomes associated more with movies like the recent Frozen than with songs like Winter Wonderland. The prevailing thoughts in people's minds won't be happy ideas on how to enjoy the winter season, but instead on such stressed out worries as how to get to work in all that snow, what the roads are going to be like, how ridiculously high the electricity bill is going to be this month and how much it's going to cost to get snow tires this year.

These are the sort of worries that always come from adulthood. Childhood pleasures become adult stress sources. Sometimes the mind will try its hardest to focus on the negative; but is that any reason to let it do so?

Who doesn't love sitting by a warm fireplace (or at least in a warm room) with friends and loved ones, while the cold storm rattles around outside? Why not take a moment out of one's busy life to go back and revive some of those childhood joys, from building a snowman to starting a snowball fight, whether there's kids around to do it with or not? And despite the fact that so many people out there describe winter as "dead," the fact is that nature doesn't die in the winter- it's simply sleeping - and a snowy landscape can be breathtaking, if one only stops to look at it.

Snow, like anything else, can be a pain in the neck if we choose to look at it that way. In the end, though, it's always worth it to remember the joy of that first time you made a snowman, and try to re-experience it.