Snow

The last time I saw snow was not that long ago. In fact, it was only last year when we went up to North Carolina for winter break. But the last time I had snow here, in Alabama (and I don't mean the small little flurries that gets school canceled, I mean the inches of snow on the ground which lead to sledding down hills and decent sized snow people) was about five years ago. This was even before we got our second dog which right now feels like a million years ago (she's a real mess, but we love her anyway). 

To be completely honest, I wish for snow equally as (or more) consistently as I wish to be accepted to college. And yet mother nature always leaves me hanging. I am aware I was born in a time and place that doesn't really allow for all that many good snow days, what with climate change and being in the south (which has its own drawbacks and silver linings). But I have been consistently told (as I look at colleges mainly in the north) that I will very quickly get sick and tired of the snow. As far as I’m concerned I will be hoarding it and bringing some to my family when I visit home. 

But I think snow has a deeper meaning than just being cold, frozen water. It has come to symbolize something that is a rarity, something that is light, beautiful, and reminiscent of a time when things were not so desperately bad. A time when climate change was just something people could get vaguely mad at and blamed it on others for not doing anything. But the severity of it all has come to sharp focus as I am consistently more exposed to the depressing stories which haunt everyday news. I think snow, because of its rarity, has come to be associated with better times, and now that things need to be done by “2030” which is only eight years away, the wish to go back to easier times is even more prominent. Maybe it wasn’t “easier times”, but I was definitely less aware of all the immediate problems. I am now almost positive that what they say about ignorance is correct, there really is a bliss in not knowing. 

But I know deep down, that I would not trade my knowledge for ignorance any day. Because what they say about knowledge is also true, knowing is power.