go out and play!

Since when is the whole of winter littered with little nostalgia-triggers? Eh? Or is this just a sign I’m getting old? (I’m still not buying that one.)

But shuffling through my RSS subscriptions this morning, I saw the NYT article on the Blizzard of ’06 and wished myself there. The last snowfall as big as that one that I can recall (and it might not have even been that big, but I was a lot smaller) was in the 70s, when we were living outside of Detroit. There’s something about going out and playing in snow up to your thighs (or big huge piles of leaves) that’s oddly comforting – maybe because it evokes those times when you were little, and your mom would put you in your snowsuit and you’d toddle out into the bright white drifts and come back in only hours later when you probably couldn’t even feel your legs anymore, and there was a piping hot cup of cocoa and a plate of cookies waiting for you.

So, friends in New York, do me a favour: take the Subway up to Central Park and go play in the snow. Then wander into the Library at the Hudson, or the nearby fire-warmed bar of your choice, and demand a piping hot cup of cocoa. And some brandy. Go on, you know you wanna…