Wintery Morning

It’s beautiful outside. We had a fairly decent freeze last night, so the grass is covered in frost, the sky is grey, and the memories are flooding my mind. How great were cold, snowy winter mornings when we were kids? That feeling of responsibilities (i.e. school) thrown to the side. The new possibilities for the day were dizzying.

What snow brought out in me was the hidden architect. Here are a few of the projects I build over the years:

An igloo big enough for 3-4 people, with windows and a chimney of course

A monolith (in the late seventies- I was inspired by 2001 A Space Odyssey)

A downhill sledding race track, with iced embankments and a huge life-threatening jump at the end

The oblighitory snow-ball-war fortress, complete with a pyramid stack of snowballs with iced centers for maximum damage

An under-snow maze tunnel (the blizzard of 1978 provided almost 3 feet of snow with huge drifts)

Two things have changed for me now. First, I am forty years old and that basic kid-like drive and creativity when it comes to the medium of snow seems to have left me. Secondly, I moved to Nashville- and a big storm here is one inch.

Bring on the dirty, grassy, dead-leafy 24” snow men!