Snow People

As I sit with a window looking out over my back yard–the dirt that has replaced the drought-killed grass, the chickens scratching for munchies in the flower beds, the San Francisco sun peeking through the clouds and promising to make it 50something degrees today–I confess a deep jealousy of everyone enveloped in Snowmageddon back east.

I’m not all that jealous that they might to go out and play in the snow. Though having a snowball fight with my kids does sound pretty epic.

And I’m not at all jealous of the hard work of keeping the driveway and sidewalk shoveled. Believe you me. I’ve done that before.

But what I’m really jealous of is snow people.

Not people made out of snow, but the humanity that snow brings into being.

Despite whatever jostling for the last coveted pack of toilet paper there might be going on at the local Walmart, there is something about a looming and present natural upheaval that causes people to see each other. Strangers make eye contact and nod. Humans that you would not have spoken with before suddenly become co-conspirators, partners in arms, as everyone participates in the common narrative of stocking up, shoveling out, and hunkering down.

Snow makes the world beautiful. Not just because it turns the world white, but because it opens our eyes to each other. To the people who are always there but whom we never see.