While intrepidly if ill-advisedly choosing to walk in a below freezing wind to a fantastic yet unknown-to-us sushi place near but not nearby to the Tokyo office, I remarked to my compatriot how Detroit was hit with several inches of snow in sub zero Fahrenheit temperatures and how much better off we were in our current state. I glibly commented that I also didn't miss shoveling the snow off of my driveway. Yet …
I miss the sound of falling snow.
The world becomes immediate and undemanding. Lights halo. There's a smell to it colored by the temperature and one's own breath. And the sound, the sound can be a nearly silent blanket carefully laid down or a muted padding or something indescribably in-between. A ghost world, sweet and isolated and crisp, with few to one inhabitant.
Hopefully all of this revelry remains untainted long enough to imbibe before the scene is broken by two-stroke engine oil and gas burning atmosphere in a hurried effort to move matter from point driveway to point elsewhere.
Untainted at least for one single moment of delight.