So as I wrote/complained about last week, it’s been snowing in Shanghai.
Even though I’ve not lived in a place that has had snow for almost 20 years – and have been perfectly OK with that fact for all those years – I can’t help but accept it’s quite nice to have around.
Sure it’s cold and has forced me to enclose my feet in contraptions that I am sure were created to be torture machines from the past [that’s shoes if didn’t know] but because my reference point for the white stuff was frozen in a time to when I was much, much younger – my initial reaction to a city covered in white was that it was time to play.
I think I mentioned to some of you that within minutes of getting out of the apartment, I found myself making snowballs and throwing them at people. Sure, they were the wrong people [ie: not who I thought it was, which resulted in me having to try and apologise using a few words of Mandarin and some excessive hand gestures] but the fact that was the first thing I did kind of makes me feel good.
Mad eh!
Well, probably more sad.
Anyway, the thing is because it’s been so long since I saw the stuff falling out of the sky, it felt like I was seeing it for the first time and the whole concept of ‘experience innocence’ is one I find fascinating.
Without wishing to sound like a weirdo – or a pervert – one thing I love to do is watch a kid experiencing something for the first time.
It could be their first interaction with snow … circus’ … animals … it doesn’t really matter, I just find watching their faces and actions amazing and end up feeling kind-of honoured I was there to share it with them, even if they don’t realise it and will have forgotten it when they get older.
And that is why I am secretly quite excited about the snow.
It’s more than just nostalgia, there was a sort of ‘discovery’ element to it … and so not only did it make me wish I could clearly remember how I felt the first time I experienced stuff, it made me re-think and re-evaluate a whole bunch of things that go way beyond just the category of icy water and that’s nice because when you get to my age, the thought that you can still be enchanted and inspired by something from your past is rather pleasing, especially in my industry which is almost exclusively focused on the new.