Let’s go outside and feel the cold with the children

It’s been a very cold and snowy winter. Two snow days when schools were closed and many bus cancelations so far. And this is in our city, rural schools had many more closing and bus cancelation. Days after days of indoor recess at schools because of cold temperature.  -25C degrees, gusting wind of 40 km or stronger, snow, and it’s been for months now.

But it’s not easy to deny the beauty of the snowflakes on our hair, the awe moments of watching the storm from the warmness of our home, the worries and talks about the birds, including the returning geese (I don’t know what they’re doing here in the middle of winter!), and the invitations of big piles of snow to jump off, to roll on, to dig, to kick, to make snow balls, and to just lie down and look at the clouds.

I have to say that there were few days that we spent more than an hour outside; but those days that we went for walk or play were exciting. Rauz likes most to snow fight, while Hamid and I pretending scared and running away. The role play can continue for the whole outdoor time. Her next best thing is to slide on the ice or walk knees deep in the snow. Or if it’s not too cold to lie down on the snow watch the clouds dances in the sky. These are the moment of peace, pure joy, and fast or slow heartbeats, when Rauz’s imagination is demanding attention and space, when her mind can be focused or wandering and wondering around.

For me, it is a pause to not question the nature for being too cold or too windy but to feel a unique unity between my body and mind and those of my environment.

A body in search of …

Children cannot resist snow. Their whole body is searching for sensory experiences. Curious eyes follow snowflakes as they fall on one’s jacket, a wide open mouth desires to taste the coldness, hands design snowmen, feet stomp, and the body makes a snow angle. What’s the magic? The texture, the temperature, the color, the shape, or the power of changing the color of a city, slowly but steadily.

The beautiful silence that snow  gifts to a city reminds me of the mornings and evenings that I walked on snow in my home town … when whiteness embraced me

Biophilia  suggests our innate affinity for nature … but this love and attachment need to be encouraged, supported, strengthened, and role modeled … or it can get lost in the business of the 21st century.