The Breath of Snowfall

There is nothing quite like a nighttime snowfall. Snowflakes as big as butterflies surrender to gravity, drifting delicately until they meet the frozen ground. Clouds cover the sky, blocking out any moonlight that even considers being seen, leaving everything tinted plum. The air shifts when it snows at night—it grows crisper, lighter, as if the world has released something it has been holding all year. A release of beauty.

The frequency of snow is like music to my ears. I wait for it to return to my playlist. This beauty only lasts so long, so when it arrives, I make sure to honor it.

At the first sign of snowfall, I prepare a warm beverage for the night—coffee, tea, broth, whatever the vibration of the day calls for. I turn on my YouTube fireplace because, for reasons I can’t explain, it makes me warmer. While my drink brews and the artificial fire crackles, I step outside into the cold, pungent air and take the deepest inhale I can, inviting the frigidness into my lungs and my soul. When I exhale and see my breath bloom in front of me, I remember how present I am—how connected I feel to the world.

I step back inside, pull on the warmest pajamas I own, and move my chair directly in front of the sliding glass door. Nothing feels better than watching the innocence of snow falling—so fragile, so perfect. Sometimes I bring a book with me, but mostly I sip my drink and watch the world turn, as present and connected as I can be.

This ritual is sacred to me. I started it when I was a child.

Winter was always difficult. Darkness consumed the world, and it consumed me, too. Watching the snow was the only place I could find peace. I grew up in a home where I was forced to grow up too young, and for reasons I couldn’t name then, watching large snowflakes fall at night was one of the few times I could remember who I was.

I remember the first time clearly. It was past one in the morning. I was alone, the television humming quietly, when I looked out the window and saw the world transformed. I lived in a rural place then—no streetlights, no glow—just winter in its purest form. That day had been especially difficult. I stepped outside because I needed to feel something, anything. I paid attention to my senses: the hush of the snow, the color of the sky, the elegance of each falling flake. I took a deep breath and let it go slowly. For the first time in a long while, I felt peace.

That snowfall saved my life.

For years afterward, I honored myself by returning to that ritual whenever the snow fell beautifully. Every time felt like the first time. At first, it made me sad—reminded me how close I had come to disappearing—but over time it became the reason I welcomed winter at all.

There were winters I avoided it. I convinced myself the snow was a placebo, that beauty couldn’t possibly make things better. I slept through storms or ignored them entirely. One winter, when I was sixteen, I believed I would not make it to seventeen. But as midnight arrived on my birthday, the season’s first snow began to fall. I hadn’t practiced the ritual in over a year, but the snow returned to me anyway.

Now it is the most sacred practice in my life. Winter is still dark. It is still isolating. But the snow reminds me there is beauty in pain, softness in survival. When I take that deep, ice-forming breath, I remember that I am safe. I remember that I stayed.