Acumulando Experiencias: How we stop being amazed by things by Marina Marián Rodrigo

In early January 2026, heavy snowfall and icy conditions affected large parts of the Netherlands, prompting weather alerts across several provinces. The snow brought widespread disruption: long traffic tailbacks, hazardous road conditions, and hundreds of cancelled or delayed flights at Schiphol Airport.

I woke up on the morning of January 4th to an email informing me that my flight had been delayed by an hour. Still, my parents insisted on taking me to the airport early, wary of the local traffic that inevitably forms when there’s only one highway connecting Gran Canaria’s poles.

After the usual trials of airport security (made more bearable by the relief that I hadn’t packed an IED in my sleep), I boarded the plane and was struck by an unexpected stillness—and it wasn’t the metaphorical kind. As far as I was aware, flying generally involves reaching a runway first. Instead, we passengers were left to admire the view from our minuscule windows, watching other planes seemingly take off without issue.

 I suddenly had the urge to make snowmen, snow angels, to have a snowball fight! 

After a few minutes of this immobility, the pilot calmly announced that Schiphol had fallen. Coming from an island off the coast of Africa, I found this baffling. A large, modern, international airport brought to a standstill… because of frozen water?

We eventually reached the runway nearly two hours later.

Back in the Netherlands, rail services were also affected. Snow-covered tracks caused delays and cancellations on key routes connecting Amsterdam with other major cities. I was lucky enough to narrowly miss the worst of the storm. Even so, once I reached Utrecht Centraal, buses and trams had been suspended, leaving me with little choice but to pay thirty euros for a taxi to UCU, an expense I justify by remarking that I had no desire to reenact The Little Match Girl.

Utrecht lay under a blanket of snow so thick it was reportedly visible from space. I don’t know how impressive that is in absolute terms, but I was struck by how much frozen water could disrupt an entire urban system.

Lately, I’ve been circling a thought sparked by a cookbook I was reading over Christmas. It introduced the idea that part of the experience of parenthood (and, more broadly, of proximity to children) lies in rediscovering wonder through them. Their experiences are not dulled by repetition or monotony; everything is encountered for the first time. It also suggests that “maturity” is a measure of accumulated experiences, and that there’s a cost attached to it.

I wanted to understand what that cost was exactly, and why this idea intrigued me. I initially struggled to comprehend it; surely, experience makes us richer, more informed, more grounded. But the day o

f my arrival, with my cortisol levels elevated from the long travel and the emotional weight of leaving my family behind for a chemistry lab I had no enthusiasm for, I was not feeling particularly enriched.

But sometimes, through children or through outsiders, we are reminded that what feels repetitive to us might be miraculous to someone else.

And then there was a sparkle in the train window.

At the risk of sounding very cliché, I understood “that peculiar feeling when you stumble upon something you didn’t know you were looking for, but needed.” First your heart skips a beat; then, once you realise it’s not your imagination, it feels like applying balm to a burn. The feeling expands through your chest, comfortable, like a weighted blanket, so full that there’s no space left for whatever emotion came before.

That’s what snow did to me.

Despite everything, it was snowing. And I felt giddy. I felt like a child. I suddenly had the urge to make snowmen, snow angels, to have a snowball fight! It startled me how quickly the frustration of the day dissolved into something lighter, almost jubilant.

What truly amazes me is that for some people, snow is ordinary, repetitive, even expected. Just as spending Christmas Eve at the beach has always been entirely normal for me, snow for them is simply another winter detail.

Perhaps that is what accumulating experiences really means. We do not lose our “childlike wonder”; we simply classify our experiences as “already seen.”

But sometimes, through children or through outsiders, we are reminded that what feels repetitive to us might be miraculous to someone else. And in witnessing their firsts, we are briefly returned to our own.