Wonder

We have been either enjoying or suffering through (depending on your point of view) a snowstorm for the last day or so. February is preparing to leave us, winter has but three weeks left...and suddenly realized it forgot to give us snow. So it's making up for it, to the absolute delight of many of us and the chagrin of others. (Does it mean you're officially old when you hate snow?? Sorry, Jerome...)

My favourite kind of snow is exactly what we've been getting: wet and sticky. I do wish I knew even a few of all the Inuit names for different kinds of snow. The winter artist delicately traced every deciduous branch on every single tree in white, then decided to make it bolder and so thickened the lines. The result was a wonderland that only invites cliches, so I won't bother. Overnight, I see, the artist decided it was too much like a Christmas card, shook everything off the branches and, as I write, is trying again. How splendid to be able to play with the whole world as your canvas. And how wonder-full the result.

The power of scent

How amazing, that a scent can bring back memories so powerful and visceral!

I went somewhere tonight and entered a small nook in order to deposit my coat and purse -- and suddenly I was a small child in church. Someone else who also left their coat wears a perfume which the olfactory part of my brain immediately told me I had smelled before, from some lady who went to our church when I was a child. I felt like I'd been blasted into another zone! I was immediately transported back to the lovely wood of my childhood church.

I wonder who it was, and what the perfume was. If I'd known whose coat it was emanating the scent, I'd have asked her, but I didn't. A time travel miracle courtesy of my brain. Wow.

The Olympics

Okay, call me a wimp, a pushover, a sucker, whatever you like.... But I love to see so many people from different countries getting together with a common goal, cheered on not only by their own compatriots but also by those with an appreciation of their skill and ability. I love to see the country flags raised, hear the national anthem of the winner, hear the cheers of the crowd as their countrymen go by. The sports themselves? aaanh... don't really care. But I do appreciate what can all represent.

Maybe idealist is actually the best word..