It’s been a very long time since I have seen snow. A few years ago, while I was at Hamilton Correctional Institution, there were snow flurries, but all the snow melted before it landed on anything. I tilted my head up towards the sky and opened my mouth, but not a single flake landed on my tongue that day. Minus that one time, I had not even seen snow since I was a young child. As for feeling or holding or walking through snow, I had not done that since childhood either. That is, until recently.
I was surprised at how warm it was outside, as I stepped out the door in the morning on my way to the dining hall for breakfast. Everyone was excited and laughing, because most of these people have never seen or felt real snow before. Of course, the first thing that everyone did was grab a handful of it and toss it at their closest available friend, then laugh out loud about it. For a moment we were all free. There was no prison, no guards, no difference in neighborhood or gang, no color. It was only a group of grown men presented with the opportunity to act like children again, without any judgment being passed.
A day later, we were allowed to go to the recreation yard, and there was still snow everywhere. Almost as soon as we reached the recreation yard a snowball battle of epic proportions ensued. We had not been on the yard for almost a month and the fact that there was about six inches of snow everywhere made for an awesome battle. Very rarely are we allowed to be on the recreation yard for as long as we were that day (almost an entire two hours). We had a blast for the entire time that we were out there. Towards the end we stacked three massive snowballs into a snowman. Then, some big guy decided that he was going to try to tackle frosty. Unfortunately, it turned out not to be as good of an idea as he may have imagined. He ran and collided with Frosty, but Frosty stood tall and the big guy ended up on his butt in the snow.
I thought it was awesome; hell, everyone thought it was awesome. But, as is true for more things than not, it had to come to an end, and everyone had to snap back to reality and grow back up in a flash. The excited chatter about the snow died down eventually. Most of these guys have complexes about what it is to be a man and want to project the tough guy image that is required of them to survive in prison. They don’t typically communicate well with each other. Yet, during these snowy days, they were being genuinely nice to each other and communicating peacefully.
For several days, snow remained on the ground as we came out of the building for lunch, and it was still there after dinner, which caused the bubble of elation to rise back to the surface of everyone’s emotions. Again, awesome! I really wish that these guys learned a simple truth from this series of events, which is this: you don’t have to constantly be upset, angry, and/or tough. Sometimes you can let go of the outrageous and unrealistic expectations that you have built up and just relax and enjoy the blessings bestowed upon us every single moment of the day from the first breath until the last! I pray that you have a day that is as awesome as this for yourself.
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