Today I saw snow fall for the first time.
I’d seen it on the ground before, while skiing at Falls Creek in Victoria around 11 years ago, but it was icy and probably artificial. Snow on the ground, but none in the sky.
Today, though, around 8:00am, I saw snow fall, in plump flakes that floated heavily past the window of the 11th floor classroom where I was teaching English. They distracted me from the lesson.
Snow looks light, and feels dry to the touch, but it quickly sticks to one’s clothes in patches of icy slush. It blows into one’s eyes, and catches in one’s hair. Many people here carry umbrellas to keep the snow off them.
I saw some of the heaviest snowfall from the window at the McDonalds where I was eating breakfast:
Back at Berlitz, I watched it floating this way and that by the classroom window. I saw competing winds drive the air-filling snow into a slow and beautiful upward climb, before wrenching it away to one side and then another.
I brushed snow off the seat and handlebars of my bike (the one in front):
And on my way home I saw a rose garden, decorated for Christmas, covered in snow:
Snow has always been part of my cultural literacy; now it’s part of my life.
Happy holidays, everyone!
