The Transformation of the Snow Queen
From Hans Christian Andersen's beloved fairytale to the White Witch of Narnia and Disney's Elsa, the Queen of Winter prevails.
I was eighteen years old when I first witnessed the magic of snowfall.
It was my freshman year at my university, and after growing up in a seasonless paradise, I would get to experience my first real winter. I had been trapped indoors all evening in a dark theater, rehearsing for a play, and had little indication of the transformation taking place on the other side of the thick, concrete walls. By the time I was finally free to walk back to my dorm, the campus was shrouded in a blanket of snow.
I vividly recall opening the front door of the theater and feeling my breath leave my body; like Lucy pushing past the fur coats and stepping gingerly into Narnia, I had found myself in a foreign land. The snow descended silently, and on my black coat, I could make out every groove and crystal formation of each individual flake. I just couldn’t believe that such delicate beauty existed in the world, and that I would have t…