Stop the world.

I hope I never get tired of hearing the sound of snow under my feet. It's a unique sound, really. Those crackles, those staccato crackles like walking on sand or gravel or broken glass. So familiar. Predictable. Typical, almost. It's a sound we hear all the time. But underneath it there's another sound. This constant munch. Difficult to describe, but it's always there. The sound of snow compacting under your shoes. This cartoon-ish squeezing noise. Not quite a squish. Just a steady munch. Persistent and reliable. It always sounds the same. Comforting, almost.

Munch, munch, munch.

It snowed here, like it so rarely does. A precious occasion that finds everyone roaming the streets at three in the morning, bleary-eyed and absolutely giddy. Mature young adults when they go to bed but rowdy children the second they're roused from their beds. Laundry basket sleds, miniature snowmen, and names scrawled on the windshields of uncovered cars. It's amazing to be reminded that people still know how to have fun. Real fun. Running through empty city streets with your friends in awe of how fantastic everything is. So much better than grown-up fun. Alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs. Legitimate, at least.

I remember the first time I saw snow. I must have been six. In California. One one of those rare occasions we found ourselves in California. Weddings and funerals and drama dressed up as loving family visits. But there we were, standing on the ski slope. People running around, sliding, skiing, trying to get up or down the hill without falling. This huge hill that stretched up beyond what I could see. A long white slope that faded into a white sky. I was too small for skis. Too small for snowboards. It was fine, though, I didn't need to go up the hill. I was content to play around in the little snow patch at the bottom. I didn't know how to make a snowman. It always seemed so easy in movies. Just make a snowball and roll it around. But that's not how it works, apparently. There's some kind of secret to it.

So I made little snowballs and stomped around. And rolled around in it. I wasn't some little kid in a flamboyant snow suit, I was Luke Skywalker escaping the wampa cave on Hoth. I was so excited I filled a plastic grocery bag with snow and stuck it in my grandfather's freezer to save until the next time we came to California. The next time we came to California for the next wedding or funeral seven years later, nobody had any idea what I was looking for when I rummaged through the freezer.

I would've been happy to just stand in place and stare at the snow under my feet.

And I hope I never get tired of looking at snow. Not just because I've only seen it a couple of times in my life. Not just because it's some beautiful symbol of nature's splendor. It's more than that. I walked out into the street, alone. Snow flurries whipped around me and stuck to my coat as the wind cut through all my many coats. The street--my street--was a perfectly blank canvas. Everything was covered in white. An entirely unspoiled world. And I walked. I walked down the road and around the block and through parking lots and up stairs and down ramps and through alleyways.

Behind me, my footprints. Confident and completely alone. A single line of steps stretching out into the white unknown I'd come from. Shadowed depressions on the surface of the moon, wrinkles in the paper. Evidence that I had been there. Before me, nothing. An empty map. I was an explorer, a pioneer. I was the first person to traverse this new world. My footprints were the only ones there. I was the only one who had ever walked or stood there and I was the only one who ever would. And I stood and enjoyed that.

The next night I took another walk. There was still some snow on the ground. It was hard to believe, really. Even harder to believe was the patch of untouched snow I found. Blocks of wet, dirty sidewalk and suddenly, this. It was like someone had spilled whiteout on that stretch of concrete. And so, for the last time, I walked across it. My own claim of ephemeral Earth.

Munch, munch, munch.