Snowin' in Maine

My mom tells me that it is snowing in Maine right now. I purposely have kept the news off, not wanting to hear about the winter weather that is sweeping across the nation, but just missing DC. We are getting rain. Cold December rain.

If you've never lived in a place where it snows regularly, you have no idea what I'm missing. I miss the silence of newly fallen snow. I miss the crisp whiteness that makes your eyes water. I miss the smell. The smell of the air before it snows and the smell of the snow on the ground. I miss the way that a vast expanse of unbroken snow looks. I miss driving down the road after a fresh snow and seeing snow mobile tracks in the fields beside the road. I miss the way that the birds fling the snow around, and their little tracks that they make on the railings.

I miss bundling up too much and then unwinding my scarf and feeling the cold on my cheeks. I miss the way that hot chocolate or hot coffee tastes when it is being sipped in truly cold air. I miss the silly snowmen that little kids build. I miss trying to make snowballs when the snow is really just powder. I miss shoveling the snow and how it never fails to amaze me just how much work shoveling really is. I miss driving in the snowstorms with Andrea. That wonderful sense of danger (are we going to slide off the road???) blended perfectly with the comfort that if anyone can drive well in snow, it's Andrea.

I miss how perfectly cozy snow days feel. I miss the little gift that mother nature gives you when a foot and a half of snow falls on a Sunday night through mid-day on Monday. I miss the way that cars start to venture out in the afternoon and the water browness of the roads. I miss navigating the sidewalks before everyone has gotten out to shovel and the icy little trails that are made in the snow by many feet traversing the same place.

I miss red cardinals and the incredibly festive feeling of looking at Christmas lights through fresh snow. I miss my mom and my brothers and the way that we used to play in the snow when we were kids. I miss making snow angels and I so sad that Bailey will have such a different perspective of snow.

It is not often that I miss my birth home. Not often that I wish I were still in Maine. But today, I do. Today, it is snowing there and raining here...and I'd rather be there.