First snow
Although I live in a Midwestern tundra, my affection for cold weather is limited to the fact that I can build fires in the fireplace and put marshmallows in hot chocolate. So when I walked down the hall at just after six this morning to let out the dogs, and noticed, through an unforgiving bay window, that the ground and roofs behind my house were covered in snow, a familiar feeling washed over me.
It’s the same feeling I get until each year’s first snowfall — a combination of dread, hopefulness and gratitude.
Dread because I do not like the cold and snow means it’s really winter. Hopefulness that the snow means we’re one day closer to spring (which in Chicago, meanders in around mid-May). Gratitude because for the one minute between bed and sliding door there are no footprints or other dog accoutrements in the back yard scenery. I do love snow — when I’m in the house.
But when I opened the door and the dogs had a look-see, their ears went up and their tails wagged.
“What did you get us?” they seemed to say?. “Let us go see!”
It happens every year – they run around in the first snow like we’d just moved here from Tahiti. Their tails wag and stick their noses in it and then shake their heads to get it off like they can’t believe the stuff actually comes off the ground.
I don’t know if they don’t remember snow or if it’s the memory of snow that makes them so happy. It doesn’t really matter and I know that.
So even before coffee that started me thinking about books. And how even though you’ve read a zillion books in your lifetime, THAT is what you want when you read a book.
That dog-in-the-first-snow kind of feeling.
The feeling is familiar because you’ve read books before, ones you’ve liked and ones you’ve loved, but the feeling is full of anticipation because the book is new. When you read a book (or write one), those opening pages should evoke the same excitement as when Mitzi sticks her nose into the snow and then turns around and looks at me with a ‘this so cool’ kind of dog stare and tail wag.
It’s the cold wash of newness and the warmth of familiarity — at the same time.
OK, all niceness aside, now I have to go find my boots.
4 Responses
to “First snow”
1 Trackback(s)
- Jan 14, 2010: isifadasoril
Very apt description. I feel this way when I emerge from the library with three or four books in my arms. The anticipation of diving into an amazing book is a wonderful feeling.
We got some snow yesterday, too, and more is supposed to be on the way. I’m excited.
AWESOME analogy. I love that excitement of the first snow, and the excitement of cracking open a new book IS very similar.
Love your thinking! Like the other two said, it’s the perfect analogy.