Sequins from the Sky

Today has been a genuinely wonderful day – and yes, it’s January and yes, it was snowing all day! Bronwen and I spent at least an hour out in the great outdoors, slipping on the ice, covered in flakes of snow, playing on the play equipment and having a blast. It was a day that was cold enough to have softly falling flakes of snow, but not so cold as to become painful after 10 minutes of exposure. There was a hint of blue in the sky hidden behind the clouds that makes a soul smile; a blessed relief after weeks of melancholy skies.

It never ceases to amaze me the sheer number of different kinds of snow that fall from the winter skies here in Canada. There are the softly falling flakes that are the archetypal snowflake designs that we are so used to seeing in the brochures of department store catalogues. There are the soft drifts of snow that cling to a child’s eyelashes and make her look as if she is wearing white mascara – usually reserved for the exclusive use of drag queens at Mardi Gras. There is the hard stinging kind of snow that feels as if the very heavens have turned into cannons, firing hard pellets of ice, leaving small red marks on any exposed skin. There is the snow that falls and turns into small diamond shapes of crystal that glitter in the sunlight. Snow showers, drifts, blizzard, whiteouts and storms snow puffs. You name it; there are some wonderful words for the white stuff that falls from the heavens.

I confess that when first I came to Canada I did nothing but complain about the cold and when I saw the snowflake decorations flanking the escalators in the local department store, I voiced my negative opinion. I thought it showed a lack of creativity to use such a hackneyed expression of winter, my knowledge in snowflakes being as such that I thought it was an urban myth that snowflakes looked that way. Until Matthew leaned over my shoulder and quietly said… “Ahhhh… that’s what they really do look like.” From that moment I couldn’t wait for the next snow to fall, because as the saying goes, seeing is believing.

I’ve cultivated a new hobby to partake in these recent days. I guess you could call me a ‘flaker’ for short, not that that’s anything to do with the flake we enjoy with our fish and chips in Australia, although truthfully, I could really gobble up a piece of gummy shark right about now in this land of salmon and halibut…..

And follow it up with a chocolate flake… yuuuuuummm

Flaking has nothing to do with being stupid and ditzy, nor can it be understood as to being a blonde moment. No, this type of flaking is when I go out in the middle of a storm, catch snowflakes on dark pieces of clothe as they fall and look at them through a magnifying glass. OK… so maybe it is a little ditzy! Snow flake watching is when you take the time to really look at the beauty of individual snow flakes before they hit the ground and are destroyed. Go and look at the amazing photography of Kenneth Libbrecht to see why I’m totally hooked on watching sequins falling from the sky.

Having been challenged by my life coach to find a way to enjoy the cold weather, I struggled because I am not a naturally outdoorsy kind of person and the winters here can be very long. For me, the perfect way to spend a winter day is to curl up with a good book, or have a favourite movie playing in the background as I loose myself in embroidery for hours on end. It is not my thing to grab some vital piece of equipment and go cross country skiing or ice skating. I freely admit that neither I nor my husband enjoys watching hockey, I don’t ever expect to desire to go snowboarding or dog sledding and the Canadian love of curling is simply beyond my comprehension. But with my delight over watching flakes of snow, I have found a way to take pleasure in a previously unenjoyable aspect to life here in a new county. It has taken a deliberate course of action on my behalf to find this new found enjoyment and appreciation of winter in my adopted country.

Obviously a challenge can be found in all this. What is there in your life that you need to change your attitude towards to make things better? How would improve if you changed the way to reacted to them? Would it bring to you pleasure to a previously uncomfortable, unwelcome part of life? If I were to ask you face to face, what is the one thing that you can think of right now to change your attitude towards, what would you tell me?

No related posts.