When you live in a maritime climate, the vagaries of weather don’t exactly dominate your life. Spring spills into summer, rainy but mostly pleasant and mild. Fall can be glorious and sweet, but rarely extreme. Winter is grey and wet and rainy, but again — certainly by northern standards — mild.

Perhaps that’s why a palpable spirit of excitement seems to settle on a place like Vashon when real weather blows in. It’s as if the most boring of families finally got a little drama going and the restless among us can hardly wait to wade in.

There are some logical reasons for our hype about weather. With only one snowplow going at any given time on Vashon, we’re quickly and easily paralyzed. Two inches of snow can make the side roads (read 95 percent of Vashon) treacherous. Inexperienced, many of us drive tentatively, while others — in their big rigs, vehicles that have little purpose nearly every other day of the year — barrel down, impatient and full of bravado.

But it’s not just the trials of travel that give snowfall its drama.

Snow transforms the world, especially at first, when it’s pure and undefiled. Bare branches turn into lacework. The hard edges of our built environment soften. Well-traveled roads seem new and adventurous.

And in ways many of us love, it turns our world upside down.

Those of us who live in the work-a-day world of computers, cars and climate-controlled offices suddenly have to pay attention to another part of life — to the natural world. The abstractions of office work are cast aside, traded in for what feels like a more authentic set of chores.

As the newspaper goes to press, we don’t know if we’ll wake up Wednesday to what meteorologist Cliff Mass has dubbed “slushmaggedon” or “snowmaggedon.” Predictions of snowfall range wildly, with some suggesting a mere four inches, others a whopping 16.

But some of us, like children on Christmas morning, will wake up full of eager anticipation, wondering what gifts Mother Nature may have offered up.

A friend recently put together a CD filled with winter songs, one of which — “Snowfall,” by bluegrass wonder Banjo Dan — comes to mind as we look outside to a slushy world full of promise and listen to news reports cast in ominous tones.

“Snowfall. It’ll cover up your cares. It’s coming down heavy tonight.”