Colored Snow

Snow is beautiful. It also lends an amazing amount of information. Like how much precipitation actually fell. And how cold it is outside. I was walking up to a trailhead near my apartment today, and saw deer prints along the sidewalk that crossed through a housing development. Later, on that trail, I saw blood on the snow--two spots a few yards apart. I don't know if it was some animal dying or a hiker who slipped, but it made me start listing in my head the other things you find out about because of the snow.

I thought about how you can tell where dogs relieve themselves, and how many people cut across the lawn, and what streets are traveled more than others, and just how much exhaust gets pumped out along the road. And what sidewalks aren't used, and where there should be one.

Sometimes, on my way home, I see my own footprints going the other direction as I walk home. Snow makes this weird time warp. Seeing the deer prints in the snow today, it was like the snow made everything happen at once.

The other day there was a couple kissing on campus, where a year before someone was passing out chocolate and a year before that I was walking with some friends to the choir class we all had together. I thought about how it would look with the kissing couple and the hot chocolate and the three of us. A movie in my mind, where everything happens at once.