T
he snow arrived today, en masse, and was received with the usual mix of grumbles, half-hidden smiles, and exultation. The multifacetedness of Things is never more apparent than when it snows -- it is all things to all people, all at once. The snow has not covered the world, but uncovered a different one; one that we've been anxiously waiting to see again, like unlocking the door to one's childhood home for the first time in years.
It was my Central American wife's first real snow. A familiar sight will snap into new focus when seen for the first time by a loved one. I have lived in snow since the first drifts of memories started to accumulate in my mind. Its majesty, beauty, and miraculousness have never exactly been lost on me, but its utter strangeness has perhaps fallen out of my perspective. How soft it is; how its texture changes so dramatically as you squeeze it in your hands; the fractal detail of the flake; the almost artificiality it lends to the landscape; through my wife's eyes darkly, I saw snow again.
It reminds me of just how kaleidoscopic the features of our world are, how delicately contingent. It seems so superfluous; to have stone, water, lightning, flesh, black holes and dark matter, X-rays and wood grain, smoke and snow. Why are there so many kinds of things? How can the world be expressed in so unbelievably many ways? The world did not need to have snow, but I'm glad it does.