Snow, the Great Illuminator

February 23, 2013

After this last round of considerable snow, I made a discovery. Snow has this amazing tendency to highlight little things, tiny little details that don’t really have a bearing on your life at other times. For instance, the fact that I don’t own a shovel generally has zero impact on my life. Looking at the three foot pile of snow blocking my car in the wake of the snow plow, however, causes this tiny little detail to suddenly become the most egregious oversight of my entire life. However, the snow also highlighted my thankfulness, as my grandmother long ago gave me the king of all multipurpose windshield scrapers, which worked great as a snow pick. For others, the snow highlighted innate ingenuity. For instance, I heard of someone who used a dustpan in lieu of a snow shovel.

Snow doesn’t just highlight personal traits, though. It can also highlight things not normally noticed in daily life. For example, I never realized that there was a fine, mesh net beside the golf course on my way to work. Honestly, it makes sense; otherwise, an overzealous golfer would be shooting his golf balls through the windshields of people on the interstate. The snow clung to this otherwise invisible net, illuminating it in sparkly splendor, as it does many other things.

Heather G.
Oak Grove Branch