• I didn't wake up today. I had been since nine the previous night. Every morning, I spend an hour getting my sister ready for school. On winter mornings, I'm apprehensive. I hate the winter. I especially hate walking through the snow, which I must, as I take her to the bus stop.

    It's plausible that many years ago I awaited the first snow of the season. I soon learned, however, that the soft delight we portray as Winter yields nothing more than death and discomfort. A dull gray, often browned with soil and other anomalies, macroscopic winter falls short of its microscopic intricacies.

    It was around seven this morning when my mother came back into the apartment, looking for an umbrella. It was raining.

    "Awesome" I thought sarcastically. Not only was my sleeping schedule backwards, but puddles of snow decided to crap themselves onto this crappy winter day, of crap. Thankfully, I thought, today was the last before Christmas Vacation, where loud noises from school-free children would replace (and remarkably, wake me at almost the exact same time) the freezing hell I've been in for the past few months.

    The alarm went off. I woke my sister up. I explained to her I hadn't slept, fully aware of the futility of my efforts. One hour of mishaps later, we were ready to leave for the bus.

    I could have cried. Puddles were few. "Ice" was a matter of opinion. The thinnest, lightest rain had frozen over, glazing the earth, pond and trees in a delicate crystalline. The ground crumpled beneath me, remarkably supportive. Minuscule rivers weaved to and fro, and it is this flow that purged the snow of impurities. The usual glum of bare, dead branches dangling from the trees was gone as well, for today, they had become icicles, thin and delicate, and remarkably beautiful.

    This fragility; this delicate balance, is what Winter truly expresses. Years of hating winter, and still loathing my daily routine, the variables which decide the fate of this world fell into just the right places. At least for today, while I wait for this expression to lose balance and shatter into pieces, the Snow is Beautiful; Winter is Beautiful.


    Thanks,
    Pritchard