When I see the snow. I think of music, death, strength, wonderment, fragileness, fearsome unchallenged danger and wildness. Heavenly feeling. It’s blank. It’s solid. The snow you can see, you can see if death will wrap you up and take you away, or if such beauty there are no words I can find, keep you captivated and breathing. It’s home.

What is home? Is it base. A place to sleep. As George Carlin would say, “A place for my stuff.” Sanity, is like a Brother I have built inside me like a machine. That’s how I see sanity, who knows what the rest of the world sees, or what it is by other’s standards. Fuck it, it’s like another person, joined. Sometimes it’s off kicking rocks, and sometimes they’re making soup.

There’s a story in here somewhere, I promise I will get to it. Now, if you like it or not, that I can not promise.

Against the white of the snow, the fresh untouched snow, only slouched around by its self and the moving atmosphere. It’s still white blank canvas on the earth. Colors wash out, and become sharp at the same time. If I could call snow anything, to me… It’s entropy. And maybe one more thing… How can you beat entropy though? Right? Well…

One night, when I was a kid living in Incline Village, there was a big snow. I watched it for a few hours out of the window. At that time, we were lucky enough to be in an apartment and not living in the car. I didn’t have the right shoes, or clothes, I mean maybe I did. I don’t recall that part in detail. But what I do recall is making the decision to go out in the middle of the night and walk in the forest and walk in the snow. Stupid, really if you think about. But I was kid. Kids do things that we let slide, and then when we become of age we don’t let them slide any more.

My Dad was sleeping, not sure if he was in a drunk sleep or not. My Mom, she might have been sleeping. I think it was a rare occurrence that she would sleep, and not pace the room and repeat herself. Maybe the snow calmed her down. Too bad, I won’t get a chance to ask her now. Anyway, back to the middle of the night dumb kid going out to play in the snow. And this was major snow, I mean, feet!

I went out. It was another world. It’s burned into my memory. Standing there in that ominous, opening between fir and pine trees. So silent. So soft. Terrifyingly beautiful. I walked around for a bit. Then I believe my Sister came outside to join me. I think I wanted to be alone, but at the same time scared to be alone. I can’t fully recall but we were running around, and as I did this. I fell. Falling is no big deal. Falling into a deep pit of snow that fully engulfs you, and you slide into the mountain of ice upside down. Well, as a kid, I knew bad words. Might not have been so precise with them, but I recall my heart and brain thinking something like, “Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck!”

I came to a stop. Think back Kim, think back to school, what do you do? Where is up, what way am I facing, is the sky above my feet, is my head on the ground. Can I flip? I better spit. If you fall and tumble into a deep soft pit of snow, that fully covers you, spit, to find out what your orientation is. I spite, it went over my upper lip. So, I’m upside down.

I think I started crying and yelling for my Sister to come help me. I think she did get there after I crawled out. But I can’t be sure. If she heard me, she would have helped me, no doubt about that. But I think I wondered off too far from her. I can’t fully recall, because it is clouded by fear, but I think I somehow got myself turned right-side up, and climbed out of the pit alone. Imagine, if you will, quick sand, but instead snow.

There’s movie’s that depict individuals surviving long exposure to snow and cold water, when I see that in the movies, I think to myself. They’re going to be dead soon if they don’t… But perhaps sometimes it’s possible, if fear and sheer will drive you to keep moving. I was afraid. I kept kicking. Thrashing, compacting the snow so I could climb up to the top and crawl to where it wasn’t so deep. Somehow, I made it. I was lucky.

In Tahoe, when you go to school, they teach you winter survival, King’s Beach Elementary called it, Hug A Tree. Which, yea you should hug a tree for some warmth. Whatever you can, because the ground will just suck your warmth from you. There was nothing special about me getting out of that situation. What would have sucked, is if no one could find me in the dark and the snow. If I couldn’t get out, I probably would have bit the snow dust. Or been the unhappy beneficiary of much frost bite, considering what I was wearing was not the best for snow clothes.

Why do I share this “I” story. Fuck I don’t know. But I am. I’m captivated by snow. It’s one of the most amazing things my eyes have ever seen. I think that makes me a snow dork. If anything, it was all worth it to write snow dork. No, no there is something most wonderful that it does. It makes me feel home. When home is a place inside you that is safe, yet unstable, quiet, but so loud you sometimes want to scream, strong and undefeatable, but fragile and scared stiff. Home is a fucked up place for me. But it’s home, and I love it. Love it, in a way that you probably don’t see or think of love. Love to me, is blank, possibility, courage, this world is quicksand that will swallow you alive and suffocate you to the bitter end. So love, to me, is the courage to face the sand pits everyday. Perhaps in my case, the snow pit. Home. Courage. Snow.