A Beautiful Insult

As I walked out of the grocer's last night, I was confronted by the most beautiful insult: after a month-long warming trend (in January, in Minneapolis...), massive, fluffy, perfect snowflakes, like spoonfuls of whipped cream with peaks coated in powdered sugar, floated to the ground at a brisk pace, chasing this historically balmy January away.

It was ridiculously beautiful as I drove home -- and I'm not one for the drive from the store to home -- but honestly! These giant snowflakes plopped themselves carelessly on my car like someone, somewhere, was making miniature snowballs and tossing them over their shoulder in hopes that it would hit something with a right good smack.

I found myself admiring the beauty in winter in spite of my impending springtime restlessness. At no other time in the year does the world become so pristine, hushed, and at equilibrium than during a late-evening snow.

It also reminded me that those perfectly round dollops of snow drifting in around my coat and scarf, dancing on my eyelashes, frosting the bare branches of the black walnut sprawling naked in the backyard -- that's the reason I just cannot live without seasons. Apologies to my daydreams of tulips, but I think I have found a little more romance in winter, in spite of myself.