The Snowball

It’s freezing and snowy outside my window.

Makes me think of snowballs. Of course, when our kids were kids, snowballs played a large part of a snow day’s activities. Not so much now. Ah, good days.  

There’s the snowball rolling down the hill. It starts small, and at first, you have to push it. It doesn’t move without you. As you roll it, it gathers more snow and picks up mass and momentum. Until, at some point, it has enough mass and momentum to keep rolling on its own. The compound effect. 

There’s the snowball fight. Throw one. Dodge one. Feedback. Sometimes yours hits. Sometimes you miss. Either way, you learn. Adjust and toss again. 

There’s the snowballs that become a snowman. Grow it and shape it until it’s the right piece for its place in the stack. It started as just a snowball, but now it’s something more. A part of the whole. A creation greater than the sum of its parts. 

And finally, snowballs melt. They’re ephemeral. They don’t last forever. If you wait too long, or expose it to the wrong environment, it vanishes. Snowballs have a season.

A snowball is just the start. 

Keep rolling.