Julia Schwartz

February 7, 2003

Cascades of Beauty

            There has been something about the snow this winter that has captivated me and brought me unexpected delight. Maybe it’s the fact that we’ve not had much real snow in a few years, or maybe it’s that I’m in a stage of my life where I’m thriving upon simplicity, or maybe I’m searching for the small details of our world. As I stand in the window of the classroom, gazing out of the window, the people surrounding me melt away, and I am transfixed by the snow falling down just inches from my face. As I stand, I can become a snowflake, floating freely through the atmosphere, whirling in a glistening world of white.

I remember the last time it snowed, a few weeks ago. I leapt through the fresh powdery snow, playing with my dog, urging my brothers to help me build a snowman. Maybe I wasn’t sixteen; maybe I was four. The feeling was the same, and the realization that it was brought me as much joy as the joy itself. Later, alone with my thoughts and the swirling snow, I laid on my back in a field of snow. I was amazed by the snow’s ability to become a perfect pillow, a perfect comfort. At that moment, I had found peace.

You told us today to gaze upon the stars at night, to see a different side of the world. This made me think of that last time it snowed, when I wanted to go back into my yard, lie in the white snow, and fall asleep surrounded by the deep blue of the sky. I imagine the world at night after snow, and I tell myself I will go out tonight, experience my unity with the universe. I launch myself into the future, into my soul tonight. I’m lying in the snow, and the world is soft around me. Somewhere, I know, people are falling in love, somewhere there are people dancing, shouting, leaping in the lights of a party. And somewhere, someone is dying, somewhere a child is crying, somewhere a forlorn teenager wants to die.

But here, clouded in snow, my world is still. It’s as if heaven is floating down to Earth in tiny little pieces, covering everything, hiding imperfections, shielding, if only for a short time, the terrible ugliness of life.

Snow is so simple; it seems to simply appear from the sky – of course, I know it begins with the clouds; but try to see the beginning of the snow. You can find a line where the snow ceases to be a part of the white sky, and enters my world. It comes down to me and brings happiness.

But why?

Mr. Potts proposed that maybe snow glides; perhaps that is how death comes upon us. And how can I deny this? I stared again at the same snow which had so enraptured me mere moments before, now afraid of it. What if death does come down like the snow, smothering everything in its path? The snow is inescapable – it covers everything. Any way you look on a snowy day, all there is is snow. Is death like this? Do you all of the sudden find that line in the sky where the snow begins, where the snow enters the tiny world you have created; is it something I cannot escape once it begins?

And then, I think of when the snow stops. The snow stops floating down; its simply shards lose their individuality, and enter into the unity of a white blanket, a huge pillow. A transformation is complete.

Is this God raining down on us? Does he want us to identify him for his beauty, the inner peace he serves us? Should we appreciate it for this, or should we weep with the painful realization that this is what life should always be – one moment sealed in time, only bound by beauty and joy?

As the school day ends, I begin the mundane journey of hiking through the field to get to the buses. But this time it’s different. It’s snowing. I’m entranced by the wonder of it – of the line of people trudging through a sea of snow, of children covered in white, of teens itching to throw snowballs like they were eight. I think, maybe this is another effect of the snow; again, it brings us together. Usually, people walk with space between them, scattered across the field. Now, we are all in one continuous crowd stretching across it. Earlier, I saw a pile of snow outside the school and couldn’t resist wading into it, experiencing it. I scooped it up with my bare hands, felt it like confetti, was made aware of the heat of my body slowly melting it.

A friend said after class today, “everyone’s going to write about the snow.” I told her I had already begun. And how could you not stop to wonder? Right now, there is nothing more beautiful than this cascade of white. This is beauty.

In this weather, I’m not so different than the smallest sixth-grader. I too am covered in white; I too wait impatiently for this bus to take me home so I can don my snow gear and play in the snow. It doesn’t matter that I have work flowing over the sides of my proverbial plate, it doesn’t matter that tests and homework and SATs and colleges are waiting. Right now, there is nothing but snow. The world is snow.

I look out of the window of the bus and see the trees, the roofs of houses, the cars passing by – all are covered in the same snow that covers me. Everything is the same now, lost in the snow. This act of nature is tying us all back together – back to nature, despite the “advanced” world man has created. The ditches we have laid down between ourselves and others are erased by the whiteness – we are all the same: powerless. The snow forces us to do nothing but enjoy life as it is. It has brought us back to nature.

            Looking up toward the sky as I laid in a snowdrift after I got home, I realized that I could look at the sky no easier than I could look at the ground. The sky during a snowstorm is exactly the same as the ground; both are blinding shields of snowy light that you have to squint at to take in. Is this the universe, then? Is this our world? Are we nothing but creatures sandwiched between two halves of a whole, trapped in an aura of white?

            I lie in the snow and I think that perhaps I have found a key to the universe. I have found the beauty and seen the joy in the unity and serenity of some so simple as snow. Right now, there is nothing else. I’m as happy as I can be; my joy at the snow brings me to a place where I can shriek in true delight at the marvels playing out before me. I’m a child, born back into my past, launched triumphantly into my future.