Snow play

After getting back from a most delightful hike in the woods with Cheryl where I snapped this photo...

...I returned home with an idea for my Flickr photo.  The snow is very sticky and wet and what I thought was the PERFECT snow man weather.  Well, it's not.  It's too heavy, and maybe not wet enough, and while it rolls into a decent ball, it starts to fall apart when you try to pick it up.  

The challenge for this week is body art, and I've attempted a few things.  One is to take a picture of the scars on my stomach from the gallbladder surgery -- but the photo was not appealing to me in the least.  The next attempt was to capture the brown line that is above my lip that I I received from being pregnant with Charlie.  That one was kind of creepy too!

Today is the last day and so I envisioned making the perfect snow man without a head then inserting my head -- wa la.  Body art.  I was in hiking boots, gators and winter wear so the snowman making was a bit of a lark. (Let's face it, as adults we very rarely put on our "snow clothes" and go out and play in the snow!)

As I pushed around what seemed like a 10-ton ball of leaden snow, I tried to recall the last time I'd made a snowman.  The sun was beaming down on me, the snow glistened and a slight breeze made the task at hand quite enjoyable.  Since the snowman itself wasn't cooperating, I decided to make a snow angel and perhaps incorporate my idea into that.

As I lay in the wet snow and tried without much luck to move the slushy substance with my arms and legs to create an angel image, I gazed up at the blue, blue sky and sighed.  Without thinking I picked up some snow and started to eat it.

Just as I had done as a child.  The coldness filling my mouth flooded me with nostalgia -- ahhhh, eating snow, making snowmen and snow angels, forts, sledding -- all the trappings of childhood we often leave behind.  I scanned the snow around me (I do have three dogs after all) and then took another handful and opened wide.  It tasted so good.  A front yard snowcone, little granular bits of ice, tasteless and yet scrumptious.

As the wetness began to seep beyond the layers of clothing to skin, I reluctantly stood up and examined my snow man.  Well, my snow blob.  Every time I tried to sculpt it, it just fell apart.  The snow angel was unrecognizable (especially since I got up without much care, and it resembled more of an elephant wallow than a perfect angel!)  What to do?

Well, when you're a kid, you don't care whether or not your snow man is perfect, so why should I?  I made a few more woeful attempts at my blob then took a stool and perched the camera on it and started taking pictures.  I am sure that passer's by are beginning to take note that I am often out in my front yard doing odd things!   I had to set the timer, run back to the blob, get my face in position, smile and do something with my arms.  This under 1o seconds.   Believe me, it takes numerous attempts to get anything close to what I'm envisioning.  And more often than not, I don't.  

And yet today my little project was quite delightful and returned to me the girl that I was, that ate snow and sat in it well beyond the point of saturation and didn't care that it would turn my skin red and puckery.  The girl who would stare up at the sky as she munched on snow and feel complete contentment.