In life, there are times when someone has to do something they may not want to. Some need to go to family reunions although they do not like some of their family members, others despise going to church or running errands for their mom. When these occasions occur, people begin to focus not on the event itself, but on when it will end and they can finally go home. However, some realize that they might as well enjoy the experience because there is nothing they can do to change it. In the short story “Powder” by Tobias Wolff, a boy goes on a skiing trip with his father on Christmas Eve. On the way home from the trip, the snowfall gets very heavy and the road gets closed off. The narrator yearns to go home for Christmas dinner but is forced to spend…show more content… The boy watches the barricade get smaller and smaller until “[it] vanished. Then there was nothing but snow: snow on the road, snow kicking up from the chains, snow on the trees, snow in the sky; and our trail in the snow. Then I faced forward and had a shock… there were no tracks ahead of us.” The pure, untouched snow all around them symbolizes the pure state of mind the narrator conceives as they leave the safe town and go through uncharted territory. The fact that there are no tracks in front of them means that they are going to experience something nobody else will. When the narrator looks at all of the fresh powder, he sits with all of his thoughts and concerns and lets them go. The fresh powder resembles the clear state of mind where nothing bad has happened to them and anything is possible. The narrator is used to thinking ahead and having everything planned out. The longer they drive along the road, he accepts what is and stops thinking about what will happen when they find the other end of the path: “I knew we’d get caught; I was resigned to it. And maybe for this reason I stopped moping and began to enjoy myself.” He knows that he has no control over what consequences they have when they reach the other end, so he decides to get out of his own head and enjoy the night with his father. Since they are going to be caught for taking the road anyway, he realizes that he should make the most of the adventure so that it will be worth it despite the consequences. Instead of moping about what did not happen, he appreciated what happened because even though it was not what he had hoped for, it turned out to be
