Winter (and Jakob Wagner)

It's no secret that Paper Bicycle is located in the heart of Minneapolis. From our window above the streets of Uptown, we can see Downtown, Midtown and on a clear day, all the way to St. Paul.

And right now it's all pretty white.

Minneapolis is cold. Like dead-serious cold. Painfully cold. The snow slows everything down. It makes commutes longer and parking impossible. It makes you late, it makes you slip and maybe fall. It makes you wet and it probably makes you cranky.

On some mornings (like today) as I trudge through the snow, I contemplate on why we do this to ourselves? Why do we suffer this for months on end, every single year?

And then I come across Jakob Wagner's photo series on snow.

Oh yeah. That's why.







When you have brutal winters, you get moments of inconvenience but you also get beauty, comfort, quiet and solitude.

You get contrast; you get a reason to make the most of those short summer days. You get variety and you get Mother Nature forcing you to slow down and say 'Hold up. What's the hurry? Stay in tonight, you don't need to go out..."