The Elements and Workings of Mother Nature

Snow Day

A/N: This is just a glimpse into my world of The West Wing's Josh Lyman and Sam Seaborn.

The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?

-J.B. Priestley

Snow in and of itself is an amazing thing; the science of how it forms flakes and how no two flakes are alike. People love the look of it as it blankets everything underneath it. They love the silence in the air as it falls. Peaceful. Falling snow is peaceful. Children love it most of all- no school, snowballs fights and snow forts. The cold air warrants a warm stick to your bones breakfast before going to play and a hot bowl of soup with grilled cheese for lunch after playing. Adults love it for a minute. Then the walkways and driveways have to be shoveled. There's slush in the streets when they drive, public transportation is slow. Despite the headaches, the magic is undeniable.

Being a California boy, Sam Seaborn absolutely loved the snow. He had never really experienced it until he was in his freshman year at Princeton. It was two weeks until final exams and Christmas break. The campus was a fury of students going here and there gathering information for last minute projects and papers. Sam remembered the conversation he and some friends had on the way to dinner in the cafeteria one night. He and the fellas were bundled up; the air was very cold and crisp.

"Smells like snow." Christopher said.

"Sure does. Looks like it too." Jake replied.

"How do you know?" Sam asked.

"Know what?" Jake asked.

"How do you know what snow smells like?"

"You just do. It's hard to explain."

"Hard to explain what?" Sydney asked as he joined in the trek to dinner.

"The smell of snow." Christopher replied. "We're trying to explain it to Sam."

"Oh, well...when you've been around it all your life, you just know."

"It doesn't snow in my part of California." Sam said.

"Man, I forget you're from the West Coast." Sydney said. "You know how the air smells when it's going to rain?" Sam thought a minute.

"I guess it kinda smells...wet. Like when you have the water hose going in the summer."

"It's kinda like that. You just know."

It had been hours after dinner and Sam had studied all he could without giving himself a headache. Just before getting into bed, he looked outside his dorm room window to see if his friends were right. The flakes were silently falling. It was pretty and gentle. Just like he expected it to be. By morning, there was about six inches of it on the ground. Sam smiled as he looked outside his window when his alarm had gone off. The dorm monitor was going through the halls letting the fellas know that class had been canceled for that day but to be prepared because it would probably be open the next day. They did mention that the cafeteria would be open all day. So Sam dressed as usual and headed out to breakfast. He could always comeback and take a nap.

He was glad his mom had sent money for him to buy snow boots. Sam had bought them just in time too. As he and his dorm mates trekked back to the dorm, several of the dorm directors were outside shoveling snow. They asked the fellas for help, so they did. Their assistance didn't last very long before a few snow forts had been built and the snowball piles started to grow. Sam's first snowball fight made a deep impression on him. And every single snowfall he experienced after that was its own separate awesomeness. But none as great as that first one.