Walking back from the library at night: an exercise in the senses

     Isn't snow just beautiful? Especially on a perfect night, like tonight. I love how you can't see snowflakes falling right beside you, but when you look over at a street lamp there they are drifting gently down just waiting to be noticed. And if you try to look way up into the sky to see their origin, you lose track of them altogether; but when you start focusing closer and closer to your face you see them, materializing as if out of nowhere and fluttering about, dancing in the air. It seems like there are so many flying around you that you should be covered, but barely a drop touches your skin. And on an absolutely perfect night, with no wind, you can stand outside in a sweatshirt for a long time and just watch this perfect show without even shivering.
     Snow is so quiet. It isn't like rain, that has to stormily announce its coming with pounding on the roof and tinkling in puddles and rushing through streets and storm drains. If you never looked out the window you'd never know it was snowing. It just unassumingly descends to the ground, going about its business whether people care to watch or not.
     And then to reach out your tongue and catch a flake, that first sweet taste of winter. There's nothing inherently more special about tasting a snowflake as compared to tasting a raindrop, except that it's just better. It's light and fluffy and cold and wet and more satisfying than anyone who's never done it could imagine.
    I don't even care that snow is cold. For some reason it only feels unpleasant if you're lying in a large pile of it for a long time and start to get wet. Then maybe you get pretty chilled. But just walking through snow is a delight. The touch of a snowflake is the lightest, sweetest kiss. It lasts for a moment; til you look down to see what touched you it's just a droplet of water on the tip of your arm hair. It doesn't feel the need to soak you like rain does. It simply melts away and disappears. It's still a mystery where the snow that lands on your hand goes.
     It's really a shame that it's so hard to capture snow falling at night with a camera. You can't see the blend of gray to darker gray, with lighter gray and white speckled on top, on a screen. You can't make out how perfectly the snow contrasts with the glow of the streetlamp, the still green leaves on the trees. But it's there, if you just look. And the feelings aren't too far behind.