Once upon a time there was a girl but not just the ordinary type. She was a Snow Queen with long silky hair that looked like frost on a tree and eyes the same gray color as a frozen lake. She was peculiar to say the least and lived her life on the branches of a tree far up in the mountains where the clouds meet the earth and everything seems a bit misty.
She spent her day perched on branches, happy to sin with all the birds and whistle with the chime of leaves caught in the breeze and it was rare to see her feet at all because they didn’t touch the ground.
Though she was young she had within her the wisdom of the sages and it was that wisdom that held her tightly during the warm summer months and kept her from interfering with the seasons and moons and weather. It took great patience all those months to sit quietly and watch the world bloom around her. As she watched blossoms spring and butterflies break from their cocoons and children and lovers spread blankets on the ground below her tree, it was hard for her not to covet the life of the Spring Maiden or the Summer Goddess who everyone seemed to love and adore. Their gifts seemed greater than hers, and the Snow Queen was often jealous of the way everyone seemed to cling to their world.
But, just when she would begin to envy and wish that perhaps she had been born under the first spring moon or had the summer solstice in her blood line she would look to fall. Poor Man Fall, whose entire legacy was one of dying. He seemed to have the roughest job of all, stripping trees of their dresses, taking the green from the grass and gently but purposefully taming the sun and shortening days, causing folks to put away their picnic baskets and drag out sweaters and coats. She thought often how happy she was to not be a cursed season of transition and as she remembered this suddenly those sages spoke to her soul and she was content to wait on her branch to blow the cold air south down the mountain and into the valley.
She thought of her satisfaction at seeing that first covering of snow. The excitement she felt at seeing her very breath drip off the eaves of homes and limbs of trees and she lived for those frosty mornings when she could create wonderlands in meadows that photographers and artists tried to capture with canvas and camera.
Yes Spring had birth and Summer had leisure but she had artistry and magic. She knew the world waited eagerly for their first glimpse at it each year.
Last year had been her finest work ever, so fine in fact that the accolades made her linger longer than necessary. She wore out her welcome by gracing them with one final frosted scene in late April and it seemed no one was appreciative of the extra effort she made just for them.
The Snow Queen was wise, but she was still all girl underneath those eyes like a frozen lake and hair like frost, and when she heard the complaining, and as he travelled throughout the countryside, she was upset to see the grumbled faces of the people throwing her snow off of their cars and muttering loudly as they cleared paths to their homes. There were no children laughing and sliding down hills, no artists in parks looking at trees and how delicately her breath was perched on a wire. It seemed that last snowfall in April no one could see anything other than how all that snow was ruining their day, and she realized that even with all her hard work sometimes people are just too busy to look up and enjoy a winters day the same way they do a summer one that creeps into late September.
She was resentful as she looked out on the world below. It was two weeks past Christmas and she still had only dusted them with a little frost here and there. She exchanged her breath for cold bellowing wind and decided if they did not appreciate her last year than perhaps she would show them how miserable a winter could be without her magic.
It seemed to be working because birds carried back messages from pigeons on roofs where men and women and children stood staring out across the valley, wrapped in robes, waiting for a sign of snow. She would dust them occasionally but then retreat back to her tree letting the sun ruin her work before they could blink.
The spring maiden and the Summer goddess prodded her and tried to coax her from that tree and when they realized that she would not budge they would take the trip themselves down the long mountain and into the valley to spread their gifts among the town hoping to relieve some of the unrest they felt in the air.
But, sun and warm was not what they wanted and even as the people stood outside looking up and soaking in the warm they grumbled because what they really wanted, what they were longing for were trees weighted down with snow, and piles of it packed to the side of their walk. They wanted mountains that turned from brown to white and a reason to wear snowbooots and fur slippers. They wanted to sip cocoa by a window and watch large chunks of white fall from the sky, to drive cautiously, to have blue hands and pink noses and snowball fights. They wanted the Snow Queen, anything else just wouldn’t do, and the very people that spent their time looking down were now looking up toward the mountain where she stayed perched high on a tree with arms crossed and brows furrowed and stubbornness seeping from every pore.
It was the wind who finally changed her mind. It caught her unexpectedly one early morning in January. And as it rustled through the trees it asked the very question the world was asking too… “Why won’t you come out to play?”
The Snow Queen buried her head and refused to answer but the wind was relentless as it always was and kept pressing.
“Do you no know this is your time to shine? The world awaits your gift, the gift that only you can bring.”
“My gift was unappreciated. They do not know the love I share in it. They want it on their terms not freely and so I will show them what it is like to not have me with them.” She answered with her head still buried deep in her lap.
“You know I am nothing without you. I am just a cold blowing annoyance, but when you are with me and we dance you and I create magic. We create scenes dreams are made from and plays are written about and songs are sung to. We have danced the dance as long as I have known you. How can you leave me now?” The wind asked the Snow Queen.
“I am not leaving you, I am leaving them this has nothing to do with you.” She answered looking toward the wind.
“Oh but you see my friend it has everything to do with me and with you. By denying the gift in you to punish another only ends up punishing ourselves. Your purpose is to share, to love, to create, it is not to be appreciated. You do not create wonderlands to hear a thank you, you do it because you are the Snow Queen and it is what you are put here to do. You have magic in your soul, but that magic will turn to poison if you do not share it with the world around you.” The wind answered.
The Snow Queen listened to the wind and knew it was the truth. Never had she been more miserable than these last few weeks perched in that tree.
She thought about how it felt inside as she covered the town in a blanket of snow. Thought of how much she enjoyed giving the world a reason to slow down and cuddle up and stop for just a day. She remembered the way her heart would burst inside as she watched men become kids as they slid down hills, and mothers become angels as they laid on the ground next to their children and taught them how to make wings in the snow.
She missed the feeling of peace that would wash over her after she spent a full day decorating roofs and trees and woods. How wonderful it felt to be emptied and then refilled.
It was the creating not the accolades that made her glow. The knowing that she was sharing a piece of herself with the world around her and it was beautiful, the fulfilling of a call, the dispensing of a gift, that caused her heart to beat to its fullest.
And so without word or warning she rose from her perch on that tree and jumped into the arms of the wind and danced through the town for two days straight creating a masterpiece more beautiful than the town had ever known. It was a snowfall of epic proportions, one that went down in the record books. Schools shut down, business closed, angels were made, hills were enjoyed and for a few days the world stopped and rested peacefully under the blanket of the Snow Queen.
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