"Whore frost?"

The snow here is perfect.

Now don't take this casually. I've been around the block. I've experienced snow from a tiny village in the Czech Republic to the slopes in Colorado. I am always on a quest for the perfect snow, the perfect snowball. On my vacation this past winter my significant other made the mistake of getting into a snowball fight with me.

Big mistake. I usually like to be modest, but...I kind of kicked his ass.

Never get in a snowball fight with a Canadian.

But the snow here...it doesn't turn into ugly brown mush when it hits the ground. It has to be at least 5 degrees before it melts. It forms huge fluffy banks and dusts every surface. It's just the right consistency to be able to pick up a handful and let it cascade out of your mitted hand, but if you apply just the tiniest pressure, it packs perfectly into a perfect winter weapon. With the tiniest touch of wind, it sticks to all the trees, coating them in a hoarfrost that makes me want to walk up to it and touch it, because it looks so perfectly winter-wonderland-y that I feel like I'm in Santa's Village. It's like god's very own powder sugar that was sifted over the whole world.

I miss a lot of things about home, but the snow in particularly gives me pangs of happiness when I scoop up a clean patch in my mitts, scrunch it up and pop it onto my tongue, or when I make three-pronged footprints with my boots.

Yes, when I was little I did like to pretend I was a dinosaur.

Rawr.

(pictures are not mine. not any of them.)

don't you miss yourself?

Wait...it's March?

I'm not even going to try to catch up on everything that has happened in the past few months. From getting kittens to having a stable source of love in my life (I know, that's different...), from savoring Santa Fe to planning for Costa Rica, from being unbelievably busy and having my world crash around my ears to sleeping twelve hours a day, I have been there and back again over the past few months--and things haven't really slowed.




I thought for a while about making a new blog, or changing the name of this one. A long time, actually. I think that's partly something that was slowing me from actually writing anything. I feel like I've opened such a new chapter in my life and that I've changed so much--I mean, I haven't really posted regularly in almost a year! I felt like the renewal of my creative expulsion of whatever my thoughts might be warranted a new...something.




But then one day I really thought about it, and I smacked my head, because I had forgotten what this blog was really all about--and it would sort of defeat the purpose of everything I've ever said about this blog and written in here to turn away now.

So here we go.



I'm actually going to start by going back to something that I didn't really think I would come back to, though in retrospect that was silly.

Yup, the monastery.

It's kind of like Alex said at our last group gathering...it doesn't hit you right away. Sometimes it takes days, weeks, months for the magnitude of everything you've learned to sink in. And it never affects you the way you think it will.

For me, it hasn't been a profound change. I haven't been meditating daily like some of my counterparts. I haven't particularly been converted, and my life is just as hectic as it has always been. But somehow, I find myself insulated. Some of my previous frittered frazzled hair splitting has somehow disappeared. I don't know what it is, and I don't know why, but I find myself...at peace.





If I could explain it, if I could teach it, I would. I would probably be a millionaire. But it's this mysterious change that has somehow permeated my being, inveitably for the better. I often now find my thoughts wandering back to those sticky hot rainy days, my hole-y yellow poncho fraying, stretching to the sky on the beaten track in the dawn, tucking into doors for cool air conditioning, padding back and forth on the cool polished floors of the hall. It feels like something that looks over my shoulder, tapping me every once in a while, reminding me. I have not forgotten.




But despite having remembered many things, there are some things that I had forgotten. There are many things, like taking a trip to your childhood home, or taking off every photo and poster from your wall and carefully stowing them into a trunk, that sort of bring you face to face with exactly who you are, who you were, and who you thought you were going to be.





The blurred faces, the faint colors, the hints, the repeated images, the whispers and shadows. The memories.




I remember having a discussion about bleeding colors, and I am afraid that a little bit of that happened again. It's funny how quickly some things change, and how some others just don't. Before I knew it, that little bit of change became bigger than I thought it could get. I finally looked back around to realize it.

People always fear change as though it's some big monster that's going to pounce on you when you're not looking. But it's not. You have to be looking away for a long, long time for change to sneak up on you. Because it's not out of your hands.

Change is what happens when you make those little tiny choices that you think have no consequences every single day. When you take a shift over studying. When you hang out with a friend or decide to stay in. When you drive to the grocery store. When you submit an application. Each of those little, seemingly inconsequential things can change things forever--but not all at once. Change is a sneaky little bastard. Before you know it he's seeped under your door and your life is not the same. All those little things have compounded into you looking into the mirror and seeing someone a few wrinkles different. Add that up over time and well...that's life.

The good thing is that the wheel is entirely (well, maybe not entirely, but largely) in your hands. And if you catch the wheel before you go too far down a road, changing, or turning away from change is easy. But...

.