Zen and the Art of Snow Angel Making

I am making a pot of stew when I hear them; their faded laughter slipping in through closed windows as it carries along on the winter wind. Looking outside, I see my boys, one nine, one four, in the middle of our backyard, falling back into the heavy piles of just-fallen snow.


On their backs, they flap their arms and legs up and down at a frenetic pace. The way boys make snow angels. I watch in silence, memorizing the way they look from sky to each other to sky again. They pause after burrowing in, stand, jump left, and start again. Mesmerized, I lean against the sink until steam from the stove rises behind me, calling me back from the string of angels making their way across the yard.

During dinner, I ask about the game.

“It was the fastest way to make a mini-trench. It’s our battle line for tomorrow’s snowball fight with dad,” Noah says with a grin.

Of course.

Max, still too young to totally understand the art of winter wars, simply chimes, “I liked the way it felt like I was flying. ‘Cept I was on the ground in the snow.”

I admire the stamp their cold play has left upon them; cheeks still rosy with wind and eyes drooping in exhaustion like late April snowmen. They gather at the sliding door in our kitchen, trying to count how many snow angels they made in the growing darkness. Their fingertips rest on the glass.

“16, no, 17 at least,” Noah says with an approving nod.

Max: “Yea, at least a trillion,”

Later, I sneak outside and find the end of their long line of wild wings. I lie back, let my arms and legs move out and in as I draw my own angel. Snow is falling without a sound in thick clumps all around me. Everything else is dark and still.

When I get up, my imprint looms at the end of a chain of shadows of Noah and Max. They seem so small, as if I could scoop each up and nest it inside my own.

And in a way, standing there in the cold clarity of December night, I do.