Snow is magical. I remember once convincing my young daughter and her friend to go skiing with me one evening. I told them that Vermont full-moon snow is a special thing, that it has magical powers like fairy wings, and tinker bell's angel dust. Snow can be so magical that It feels it should only happen every 10 or 20 years. But in Vermont, at least with our current climate, it happens every year.
For the past twenty months my family and I have been living in the Dominican Republic. The D.R. is a fantastically beautiful country with white-sand beaches, warm weather, and lush green mountains. I can walk outside any day and buy a fresh, local pineapple, but there is no snow. None, even Pico Duarte at over 11,000 feet doesn't get snow.
Snow calms the world. And, at least in my head, quiets my thoughts, concerns, and rounds the harsh edges of life. For most of my adult life I have been lucky enough to enjoy playing in the snow. When others dreded shoveling, plowing, and slush, I got so excited, I could hardly sleep. This winter, 2017-18, was beautiful In Vermont and I had a chance to ski, sled, fat-bike, and enjoy the frozen flakes squeaking under my boots for three weeks. We played on the grounds of the Vermont state capitol, skied across a frozen reservoir, and used headlamps to ski through the dark to the top of nearby Umbrella Hill. Even driving from town to town I had to stop three or four times just to snap a few pictures.
Twenty-five below zero was about the coldest we experienced in January. This is cold enough to vaporize hot water when thrown into the air-- it looks like magic. At this temperature the air feels sharp in your lungs. After living in the tropics for a while, when I skied in the cold, each breath felt like a cold glass of water on a hot day.
The Dominican Republic is beautiful. Warm and sunny almost all year with white-sand beaches and palm trees. We joke about “living in most people’s screensavers”. The tropics are timeless, the perfect weather rarely changes. The dark arrives about the same time each day so even in January there aren’t the long nights of a northern winter.
Someday I will miss the Caribbean and the warm weather. But for now winters capture nostalgia. Boarding the plane for the D.R., I reached down to grab just one more squeeze of snow feeling kind of like I has hugging a family member farewell for a few months.
January 21st was World Snow Day coordinated by the Federation International du Ski (FIS). In recent years groups of snow enthusiasts have started to organize events that celebrate snow and work to stop the climate change that impacts when, where and how much snow falls each year. I feel nostalgia for snow after moving to the Caribbean. I hope future generations will able to collect these fond memories of snow. And if they move away, remember the magic.
Credits:
Photos by Marc Gilbertson