I love snowflakes. Pictures of snowflakes. Books. Those paper cutouts of snowflakes. Sponge painted snowflakes on blue construction paper. My kingdom in the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) is Concordia of the Snows with a snowflake badge.

However, I hate snow.

The anxiety that comes with the first snow is about the same as getting on an airplane and to get me on one of those takes half a Xanax and a talisman. The cold; the ice; the wet; the slip sliding around the streets. I think I stopped driving after the first snow since around 2004.

I used to walk to school in the snow. Really. I student taught in in a little town in upstate New York, and lived too close to drive. It would have really been absurd to drive, so I walked the rural roads, crossed the bridge over the kill and for a few weeks I was Abraham Lincoln.

I drove back to college from student teaching in blinding and drifting and blowing snow to see a boyfriend. Love, and an old car, makes one stupid.

Fire drills at 2am in the snow. Who pulls a fire alarm at 2am in the snow? Freshman, obviously. Freshmen with a death wish.

The only snow I remember with fondness was the faery snow in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was the worst snow in more than a decade. Started out locked in the hostel at York, hours upon hours of train delays, flights cancelled, but Edinburgh snow in January………brilliant.

Light.

Fluffy.

Shiny.

Sparkly.

Faery snow.

I spent the evening with Peter. He had never seen snow being from Australia and it was the best thing. People who’ve never experienced the bad of an upstate winter like ice storms and Red Cross Shelters – they all love the snow.

Especially if they’ve never seen it.

He had the bright eyes of a four year old, almost twinkling as much as the falling flakes under the lampposts below the castle. Everything is better with a four year old. Or a twenty year old who’s never seen snow.

This snow feels different.

It tastes different.

It grabs the soles of your feet and slides you down the street. You don’t really slip – faery snow’s not there to hurt you, only to enthrall, entangle, entwine you with the web of the faerie’s call.