This past Thursday and Friday we had snow.
The concern about snow was a bit of a real issue for me; my flight from Chicago to New Home 2.0 was delayed due to snow in Chicago by almost three hours. The inclement weather was scheduled to hit around 0400 on Thursday; as the flight delay continued I became more and more concerned. As it turned out, I made it home at 0100, almost 3 hours before the storm was scheduled to hit.
My experience with snow, even at my age, remains that of a child. Having never had to live in the constant doldrums of feet of snow (and the associated snow removal), I continue to enjoy the sort of relationship that I had when I was younger: sitting by the radio in the early morning, patiently waiting for the local AM station to call out a school closure so that I could run out and play in it.
That has not really changed in all these years. Instead of waiting for an announcement on the radio I now carefully watch the flickering screen of my computer for the e-mail announcing "all but critical personnel" should remain at home. I remain shocked at the fact that, no matter what weather regularly happens in a place, people still forget how to drive from year to year.
A pair of different tire tracks in the snow; the second round fell Thursday night leaving an unspoiled (or almost so) world to explore Friday morning.
There is something about a world in fresh snowfall, something that drives me out in the early morning before anyone else can get to it. There is a softness, a quiet, that remains unique to snow and post-snow weather. It is rare - and given where I have lived in the past, rare enough that I will seek it out whenever I get the chance.
Even being the first one out, there are still places that I will not walk. Other people should enjoy the right to be the first to make a trail as much as I do.
To those that toil in the regular grip of snow, in the feet and feet that require regular management, my fascination likely seems quaint and child-like. I get that; a couple of inches does not compare with feet, nor does my one or two day slight interruption compare with living with snow for weeks at a time. In this, perhaps, snow reflects much of my own life: skating over the harsh realities with a sort of naïve joy.
I can live with that, I suppose: So often now we seem called - indeed, almost herded - by the modern world to only see the grimness and suffering in everything. That strikes me as a bit odd: we fail to seek out the beauty before us in life and then are surprised when the world bemoans the fact that there is no more beauty. Given that choice, I will walk in the snow, taking joy in the simple fact that such a thing exists no matter the coldness of my feet or the inconvenience of my day.
There is a story here, one that I could not fully discern: A sled? A cardboard box being dragged? It happened after the previous car drove through; snow leaves ephemeral mysteries that disappear with the sun.
By the end of the weekend, of course, the snow was largely gone, a victim of rising temperatures and rain that melted it. In this, too, there remains a certain beauty, even as I bemoan the mud that now appears everywhere. After all, without such moisture, how could this are be so green?
After a snow at our place, it's always interesting to go out to sleuth animal tracks.
ReplyDeleteI grew up with lake effect snow from Lake Michigan, so mounds of shoveled snow commonly lined the streets and sidewalks. I don't ever recall getting a snow day off from school. Then shortly after I moved to the south, I enrolled in college and started at the winter semester. During the first couple of days we got snow - maybe a dusting of 1/8th inch, but classes were cancelled and everything came to a halt. I was so disappointed.
Leigh, the more I have "moved about", the more I have found local reactions to weather fascinating. People seem to very much adapt to where they live: I have seen snorts of laughter at a dusting of snow shutting down down the South as I have temperatures over 90 F shutting down the Pacific Northwest or the North. I do wonder if part of it is due to the fact that infrastructure is seldom built to manage wild variations in the weather.
Delete"compare with living with snow for weeks at a time"....ha.ha.ha.....heh...heh...heh......HAHAHAH! (snort) (gasp) Whooooo.......(sniff) Ah TB, try months at a time.....ah. Not trying to be mean, this is a very nice post that captures the joy and magic of that first snowfall. FYI, my current home averages 54 inches a season, my birthplace further North averages 88 inches a season. Those numbers are the reason a two stage snow thrower is de rigueur.
ReplyDeleteNylon12 - I was pretty sure I would get a response from you!
DeleteI can happily state that on the whole, I think I would do poorly in that amount of snow. And a two stage snow thrower sounds wise indeed.
There is a sense of beauty and art in the trees frosted with new snow.
ReplyDeleteThen again, I'm back inside drinking coffee and on the internet until I thaw out from my last session shoveling ice encrusted 7 inches.
So far this year my snowplow fees have been a tad over 2K as my driveway is very long and my beloved frets when I am waaaaay down the hill shoveling out of sight of her OR the neighbors.
Money well spent.
Michael - It is far easier to admire an adverse thing as beautiful when one does not have to actually do anything in it.
DeleteI had not thought about private snowplow services, but I suppose that makes sense.
Living in the South, I like to think I understand your fascination with untrod snow. Proper snow - the fluffy, powder-like stuff, not the usual half-slush substance we expect those rare times it freezes - is almost unheard of, and finding unturned patches of it after a day is like bumping into a unicorn.
ReplyDeleteIt's one of those circumstances of perspective. Yes, those living where it frequently stays below freezing for extended times have much less of that child-like wonder at the snow, but take them out of the cold and drop them in the near-summer of some place like Texas, New Mexico, or Louisiana, and they would bemoan the sort of baked-in immiseration that we take for granted ourselves: long sleeves, light fabrics, wide hat, plenty of water, you're going to feel like a used sweatsock no matter what you do. To us, that's as much a fact of life as the bitter cold, biting winds, and less-pleasant properties of snowy weather is to them.
Perhaps there is some magic and subtle beauty in weeks upon months of +90F degree weather I don't see for living in its grip. All in all, I think it's the same novelty that makes the exotic enthralling, only you don't have to go to the far side of the world to see it. It's just across the county. A mere few hundred miles.
Our modern world makes it seem so simple, doesn't it?
P_P - I do think a lot of it is perspective and what one is used to - and what the infrastructure will accommodate. I have seen the rather pale temperature of over 70 F shut down a major coastal city because no-one had air conditioning.
DeleteI do believe hot and humid is harder to "sell" as an environment, other than potential things are green longer. That, and your chance of rain in Summer is more.
This is a beautiful post and one I will take to heart as I grumble while wading through a foot of snow out to the garage, hoping that the snowblower will start.
ReplyDeleteI've lived in many extremes. Our schools in snow country (this was w-a-y back when dinosaurs roamed) only closed when snow completely covered all the school doors and the maintenance people needed time to shovel them out. I've lived in the desert where 120 degrees was invariably accompanied by "But it's a dry heat!" - trust me, it's still HOT. I lived on an island off the coast of Washington where the bank I worked at had a standing policy of closing and giving the employees the day off if the bank temperature sign reached 90 degrees. I worked there for a long time and we never managed to get that day off. I also remember stopping in northern California on our move from San Diego to that island to buy winter coats for everyone because we were freezing. It was 70 degrees. And there were the years in San Diego where the weather year around was '75 degrees and sunny!'
My grandma used to remind us that "your blood needs to thicken up!" at the beginning of winter; it was only 'thin-blooded' people who got cold in her mind. Then she would remind us of the blizzard of '49 when the drifts went up to the second story haylofts of barns to make sure we knew we were wimpy if we complained about a few feet of snow.
Fun memories ...
Anon, that is quite a weather biography!
DeleteI have lived a charmed cold weather life. That said, I often had to remind myself in the brutal Summer heat and humidity that there was beauty to be found there as well.
Living in the Midwest, where we seem to get decent amounts of all extremes, I laugh at anyone equally! I do see the beauty in new snow but I never waited to see if work was cancelled because it never was when I was working. School occasionally gets cancelled but that it mostly for liability issues in todays litigious world. When I was young, it was never cancelled though the school bus occasionally said they would not come the 1/4 mile down our gravel road to pick us up, thus requiring us to walk a quarter mile to the highway.
ReplyDeleteP.S. As for your mysterious track, it looks like a recycling/garbage bin being drug across the street to me. There are wheel tracks on each side and the scraping in the middle was the bottom edge of the bin.
Fair Ed. I have relatives by marriage in your neck of the woods and scarcely envy them their social media weather posts.
DeleteI suspect you are right on the tracks. Sigh. I was hoping for something more mysterious...
Beautiful pictures and thought provoking post, TB. It's been a lot of years since I've walked in fresh snow in the dark (or nearly dark). So glad you experienced and shared the joy it gave you.
ReplyDeleteBecki, I was fortunate to be here. I "forced" myself to go out in the snow because it looked too lovely to just view from inside.
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