It is fair to say that March has, as the old proverb goes, roared in like a lion. Where I live, when the snow came, ordinary life came to a grinding halt, offering precious pause for thought.
When my husband told me snow had started to fall, I rushed to the window to see, not wanting to miss a single moment.
No matter how old I get, or how many times I may have experienced it, every time I see snow feels like the first time.
The sense of wonder conjures up my childhood - row-upon-row of redbrick terraced houses dusted in icing sugar.
In the city, snow seemed a relative rarity - but when it did snow, it felt extra special, casting an enchantment over the suburbs where I grew up.
Where I live now, almost on the top of a mountain, snow is less rare but no less magical in my eyes.
As I gazed up at the first flakes fluttering from the sky, feather-like, graceful, and downy as a wild cotton boll, I felt a sense of deep peace and wonder.
I watched as they stitched themselves together into large snowflakes, delicate as lacework.
Before long, the landscape's colours were hidden beneath a blanket of white, a silvery comforter woven from deepest snow.
The stillness and quietness of snow is palpable, like a living thing. We walk through the snow drifts slowly, carefully, as if the fields are sleeping and we don't want to wake them.
The snow drives against our cheeks, fierce as needles. We struggle to see the horizon line, the seam between land and sky. Before our eyes, the snow is creating a new tapestry, a new place.
The snow forces us to slow down and stop, to take it easy, to go back to basics and the bare bones of everyday living - but it also makes us see our homes and the places in which we live differently.
Snowstorms invite us to seek out the simplest forms of nurture - taking a walk, wrapped up warm and snug, then retreating indoors to light a candle, read a book, and gaze at the elements outside our window.
In this sparkling space between spring and winter, time becomes soft and muffled; the world glitters and crackles with a sense of newness.
In the snow, we enter a liminal place, both in time and out of it. We are someplace entirely new. A wonderland perhaps; a place where we can more easily engage with our inner child and simply allow ourselves to play.
Of course, snow is not merely dreamy, ethereal, and sugar-coated. It can cause mayhem and chaos for many. I can hear the snow ploughs from my window, local farmers working hard through the night to cut a path through the storm, gritting the arterial roads in and out of this place.
A tree has fallen in our path, blocking our way and our comings and goings; a huge branch cleaved in two by the sheer weight of snow, its tender heartwood exposed. We are knee deep in snow. We are cut off, almost.
Beneath the snow lie the early spring flowers - snowdrops, crocuses, and liquid gold daffodils, bright as sunlight. We cannot see them but we know they are there.
The sleepy dreaminess of winter is present in this storm, along with the upward-spiraling energy of spring, reminding us to rest as we grow and strive for the ever-present light.