Praying to the Snow Goddess

Its been really cold and rainy for the past three days. It is almost miserable, and it sort of feels like funeral weather. If only it'd get colder, I'd be celebrating. Its been hovering between 3 and 8 degrees and if it'd just get to zero, the precipitation would be frozen and crystalline and I would be celebrating like crazy.
Snow is my happiness. Snow means skiing. Snow means that the world is calm and peaceful, and everything is beautiful and right. Snow just makes me happy, and puts me in one of those super mellow moods, where everything is perfect and nothing can bring me down. Snow is bliss. I'm just waiting for the day when I can stand outside and stare up into a street lamp and watch the snow fall down, feel the flakes as they melt on my cheeks and lips, and catch them on my tongue, and blink as they get stuck in my eyelashes. I miss being able to appreciate the silence of snow, so complete that you can actually hear snowflakes hit the ground. I miss the way people look, when they've just come in from a snowstorm, with their cheeks burning red from the cold and snowflakes stuck in their hair. I miss the way the world glimmers and shines up at you, dazzling and bright and blinding. I'm just waiting for the day when I can bundle up in my parka and mittens and fuzzy hat and throw snowballs at my friends until we're all exhausted and frozen and I have snow down the back of my neck, and then get to treat myself to a nice cup of hot chocolate.
I can't wait until I can see my skis on a regular basis, instead of having to trust that my babies are ok in the ski shed. I can't wait until my ski boots aren't just taking up space in my closet. And, strange as it sounds, I miss the feeling of freezing my toes off in my ski boots, and then taking them off at the end of the day and putting on warm, dry socks. I can't wait until I can feel that rush that only ripping down the mountain can give me. I miss the feeling of flying, gliding, soaring, ripping down perfect corduroy with total control and incredible speed, and edge angles high enough that my knees brush the snow. I miss moguls and glades and all my favorite powder stashes in Union Meadows and Upper Enchanted and Spaulding and Seventeen Glades. I can't wait for that slight jolt of nerves right before plunging off a big cornice into a steep chute, and then looking back up at what I just came down. I can't wait until I can hike for my turns, because they are so much better and more satisfying when you work for them. Honestly, I can't wait until I can join ski team because I miss getting better, and I hate knowing my skiing has gotten a lot worse over the past two years (although the new skis really did help!) I just plain can't wait for ski season and snow.
Maybe, just maybe, it will get cold enough tonight, and tomorrow everything will be clear and sunny and lightly dusted with snow, just enough that you can hear it crunch under your feet as you walk, and see your tracks behind you. Strange, isn't it, that just a couple degrees can make the difference between miserable weather and perfect weather?
The first day it snows here, I will be the happiest girl in the world.
Love,
Sarah