Snowmen

Why the snowman you ask? Well, let me tell you a little story...

One upon a time, several years ago, Crystal and I reconnected and became fast friends... again. While our friendship was based 99% on text messaging we were still able to share many good times, bad times, and mostly the ins and outs of everyday life.

During our friendship over the past four years we have yet to live in the same city. Crystal currently resides in the wide expanses of Texas while I remain in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Which, in case you were wondering, is where Crystal and I met as impressionable teenagers in the first round of this friendship.

With the great distance separating us and the constant sounds of toddlers preventing us from having an actual telephone conversation we found ourselves in a constant texting conversation every single day. Through the amazing invention of the app called Emoji on the iPhones that we are both so glued to we are able to express almost every emotion needed to convey how we were feeling. With one exception... a hug.

Like the silly girls that we are we tried out several of the other remaining Emojis that were available but not regularly used in our daily conversations. We decided eventually on the snowman that has his arms extended and the smile on his face.

Ever since the snowman has made the cut as our official symbol to express a hug he has also been promoted to being something of a mascot in our friendship that explains who we are as friends, and as writers.

So when the time came to come up with something that described us both to use as our writing personality the first thing that came to mind was this simple little symbol that has meant so much in our lives.

So thank you to the snowman, and to whoever invented Emoji for the iPhone. You have not only brought Crystal and I closer with a metaphoric hug whenever needed, you have also given an identity to this dream that we are living out.