"Jesus loves me, this I know - for it's May and there is snow!"

I love snow. Always have. Always will. There's something simply beautiful about the way it falls slowly to the ground, like it wants to take its time and dance on the wind before settling graciously to the ground with its brothers and sisters. I could watch the snow fall for hours, inside or outside (ok, maybe outside for only an hour, there is a limit to what a normal human body can take).

I love the stillness and the quiet it brings. Have you ever noticed how quiet everything gets when it's snowed? Maybe that's just because everybody stays indoors huddled under blankets and no one dares to venture out into the slush, but it seems like more than that sometimes. Like the whole world has hushed itself in awe of the beauty falling from the sky.

My favorite memory of snow is from when I was 10 or 11. It was the year before we moved out to Kansas City, where people freak out and close school for one inch of snow. Back in the Hudson Valley area of New York, they merely put chains on the school bus tires, maybe causing an hour or two delay. Actually canceling school was a rarity. Everyone else on my bus route knew to simply bundle up and make their way down to our house, the nearest bus stop on the main road (even with chains, there was no way our bus was making it up Mount Reservoir Rd). Most of the time, though, it only snowed a foot or two; hardly anything, really.

But 1993/4 was different. That was the year it snowed 4 feet. And when you're a young girl who's 4 ft and a few inches, that's pretty spectacular! Dad had someone come out to plow our tiny little driveway so that us kids could wait for the bus (yes, there was still school). The drifts from the plow were taller than even my dad! My brother and I instantly set out creating caves in which to use as forts and reading nooks (I was a book-a-holic even back then). I remember being wrapped up in my snow suit and multiple layers of hats, gloves, socks, and scarves; curled up in a tiny, surprisingly warm yet bum-soaking snow cavern reading what may have been a Little House on the Prairie book, suddenly finding myself at eye level with the roof of my grandparent's truck as they came for a surprise visit. Then running inside to hang the layers of sopping wet snow clothes on the roaring wood stove to dry, with a cup of the most amazing hot cocoa you'll ever drink waiting for me at the table while Mom chatted with her parents. Perfection.

Now, I'm not a kid anymore, and though we got REALLY lucky with snow this year in Kansas City (over a foot!), I usually have to settle for brief flurries with accumulation of maybe 2 centimeters. So when it randomly snows like this in the beginning of May, it still makes me smile and turn all giddy with a childhood desire for snow caverns and hot chocolate by the wood stove. And then I come home, curl up on the couch to watch the snow dance and swirl and spin, and close my eyes to enjoy the blanket of stillness that has covered the world in a contented comforting embrace.