We had a lovely snow last night. It was powdery, there was lots of it, and it was piling up instead of being smooshed, sloshed, and smeared. The slight wind and nature of it made for that lovely smothered quiet where you can hear small layers of it building up and being flown about. My wife and I walked to the grocery store in a delightful quiet with few others about. Most years, when these snows happen, I find myself thinking back to a short film we watched in elementary school. It was an adaption of the story ‘Silent Snow, Secret Snow’. As far as I could tell or remember, it was about a young boy who sort of gets drawn in and mentally engulfed about snow. A little mentally disturbing but just pleasurable to engage in.

I never did actually read the story (I think it was from Ambrose Bierce) and there’s a part of me that wonders if my memory of it is related to the sort of nostalgia-laced memories we have for other things we were fond of in school. I wonder about the times when we find the fondness does not repeat when given a chance. For instance, I think a lot of us have had the experience of revisiting a food we loved as a child but it’s not quite the same when we try to re-engage as an adult. I’m thinking about things like Macaroni and Cheese. Now that could be related to our taste buds but the memory thing is weird, more broadly. It reminds me of the Oliver Sacks material I recently read.