One Day of Winter

        Saturday mornings are usually lazy mornings. My bed is warm, my alarm is off, and my obligations can be put off for a few more hours at least. More often than not, when I wake up is not when I get out of bed. Last Saturday, however, was different. For the first time this winter, I work up to a world painted in monochrome. Fat snowflakes drifted past my window, lazily surfing on light wind currents to the ground, joining the millions upon millions of other ice crystals that blanketed the ground. Being Saturday, no one had to brave the new fallen snow for the sake of class, and so the snow was almost completely unbroken. An impulse to walk, to take in the new winter air, overtook me. I often get the urge to venture beyond my human enclosure and immerse myself in open space, but the urge passes with a brisk wind, or the urgent timetable most of my week is centered on. But on Saturday, I could put those thoughts out of my mind for just a few hours. I scrambled out of bed and put on warm clothes before I could think of a reason to devolve back into lethargy.

            My roommate, with whom I’ve had many an outdoor adventure, chose to join me. We wandered out of Murray and into the chill. We both knew exactly where we were headed: the Arboretum, where the trees would be iced with a layer of snow, like decorations on a cake. When the first snow falls, it’s like a completely different world. We navigate it differently, walkways and paths changing in shape with the onslaught of snow. Landmarks are different, trees and sculptures along familiar paths looking bigger and heavier as snow piles on them, forming fantastic shapes. The Lake Halls and surrounding walkways seemed almost like an enormous cathedral, the star sculpture rising in the middle like an idol and the Transformational Link making the clouds in the sky look like a grid of stained-glass windows.

The tree outside Huron, perfectly iced

            Once we made our way to the Arboretum, we made a delightful discovery: someone had built a snowman sometime earlier. He was an enormous character, surprisingly large considering that the snowfall hadn’t been more than one or two inches. Someone had put a lot of effort into that snowman, and my friend and I paused to take a few photos with him.

He has a beautiful smile

             After that, we ventured further into the Arboretum, avoiding the small groups of three or four people who had had the same idea we did. Deeper in the Arboretum, a path runs along the edge of the ravine. Three feet to one side, the ground drops off sharply. From this angle, my friend and I could see the snow lining the tree branches from a unique perspective. It looked a bit like shattered glass, with shadow and highlight intersecting one another with no distinct pattern. Other branches we observed up close, amazed; a branch no more than a couple centimeters in width often carried one or two inches of snow along its length. Branches webbed out and reminded me of cupping hands holding the snow like the tree was mesmerized by this tiny miracle. More than once we noticed snow hanging from some resilient strand of spiders’ web, appearing to hover in thin air. Snow may not be everyone’s favorite weather, but it’s magic to me.

            Since then, the snow’s all melted. Branches that we once laden as though with fruit are once again springy, reaching for the sky as though to beg for some gift, even acknowledgment. I feel like we can be different people as the seasons move on. My roommate and I, despite our love for nature, each find ourselves often too busy or exhausted to take advantage of our beautiful campus. But when the snow fell, we left without a second thought. It was as though the trees took the weight from our shoulders in the form of snow, and allowed us to shed our worries, even if for just a day. 

Those little branches are working so hard!