For BRJ
There have been a couple of great snowstorms in Omaha lately: not traffic-stopping, car-covering mountains of snow, but soft, six-to-twelve-inch blankets that require warm boots and lots of snow shoveling. “It’s my favorite day of the year,” I said to my husband a few weeks ago after waking up to a fresh snowfall.
“You mean December 27th?” he asked.
“No. Every year, any day it is the first time it snows.”
I suppose this affinity for snowy weather came from the way I grew up. With four brothers and very busy parents, there were few things in the hectic pace of my childhood that I could count on. But church on Sunday and skiing every Saturday all winter long were sacrosanct activities. No matter what else was going on, each Saturday from December through early April, children and adults all piled into the family vehicle with ski equipment and enough sandwiches and hot chocolate to feed an army. No matter what the weather, an hour later, we were all at the ski hill. When our grades were good, my brothers and I got to ski on Thursdays, too.
Over time, all this skiing configured bad weather as something to look forward to, rather than fear. While neighbors stayed in and grumbled about weather, my family dressed up and went out in it. For my brothers and I, cold and falling snow became nothing to dread, and even began to signal fun — and impending adventure. Perhaps even better, after a long day of skiing, that same bad weather also meant a warm meal and cozy bed to come home to.
Growing up, I did not think twice about my love of bad weather. But as I got older, it came to be a seasonal cycle that I looked forward to, became familiar with — and, over time, began to rely on. The snow helped me mark time — and it also helped me remember where I had come from and where I needed to go next. It was during one of the worst snowstorms Boston has on record that I decided to divorce my first husband. I was living on the east coast at the time, and my then-husband was away on business. Snowplows could not clear the roads, and so for three days, I put on my boots, coat and hat, and walked around Boston. It was not skiing, but the streets were snow-covered and quiet, and the black-and-white landscape that falling snow can create made even Harvard Yard seem austere.
Stripped of excess color and noise, the winter scenes that January told me what I had to do, and when the city was finally able to clear the roads and my husband returned a few days later, I initiated the process that led to our divorce. He was gone before the next winter. Fourteen months after that pivotal storm and newly single, I kissed my first post-divorce boyfriend in the middle of another big Boston snow and knew I would be OK.
Six more winters passed. I moved across the country, changed careers, drove through a couple of blizzards, and shoveled snow in three different towns and in front of four different apartment buildings. I also started skiing more frequently than I had since my childhood. In my third year of medical school, I met my new husband while we were both skiing in northern Utah at Alta. He had taken a bad fall a just few minutes before, and when he skied up to me at the bottom of the Germania lift, he was still brushing snow off of his clothes. “Single?” he asked. I nodded, and we rode up the lift, together.
Almost a year later, as autumn was ending, I felt sure he was about to propose. I did not know how I would answer him. The bad experiences of my first marriage had left me much more fearful about entering a new marriage than I wanted to be. But a few days after Christmas the wind started to blow, and a big storm covered the Salt Lake valley with over two feet of snow. I began to feel a familiar peace. When the storm cleared and my boyfriend bundled up, went outside — and shoveled not just the sidewalk in front of my apartment, but a space for his car, next to my own — I knew I could marry him. I put chains on my car and drove to have dinner with a friend who was in town for the holidays. “If he asks me to marry him, I’ll have to say ‘yes,’” is what I told her. Three days later, he did.
These days in Omaha, falling snow signals more work than recreation, but it still makes me happy. There are no mountains to ski on, but clearing off the car and shoveling sidewalks brings its own kind of pleasure. My new husband keeps shovels and a bag of salt on both the front and back porches and always takes our dogs outside with him when he clears the walk. The dogs frolic and chase each other, and before long, the driveway is clear and I have to leave and go to work. I smile, driving down icy roads and peering at snowflakes between the windshield wipers.
Besides calling to mind good and sad memories, falling snow also reminds me that eventually weather changes, snow melts, and it becomes spring.
I don’t know if I’ve heard a man use the term lovely before, but that was a lovely post! I especially liked the question “Single?” . I too relish in having four distinct seasons, always something to look forward too (despite all the California discussions). Lovely.
Annie, welcome to Whatsitland (this is your first post right?). I have similar memories of the snow – how it made home feel more important and the outside more peaceful. Waking up in the middle of the night to notice that it was snowing was one of the best feelings I can remember as a child (that and being carried from the car to bed by my dad).
One of the things about snowy days that I miss more than anything is the way snow affects sounds. There are no sharp sounds when there’s six inches or more of snow on the ground. It’s as if the entire world has been covered in carpet; nothing echoes, sounds fall gently, like the snow itself.
This morning in southern California, we are waking up to a nice fog bank, what is called in the regional vernacular a marine layer. The color’s about the same as snow, so you’ve given me the inspiration to (as a presumably grown adult) play make-pretend, and put on my imaginary galoshes and grab a shovel. Thanks.
Welcome Annie!
I love this post. My relationship to snow is totally different than yours, but I somehow feel very similarly.
I grew up in the desert, so I rarely saw snow. The only two kinds of snow trips we made were to cut down Christmas trees or go tubing down Pine Valley Mountain. My parents packed us up (with chilli and hot cocoa) and drove us up to the nearby mountains.
When I moved to Boston, I got my first full season of snow. I’d look out my dorm room window and see giant snowflakes falling on the trees outside. In mid-December, I had a date to go to a school formal. The date fell during the first major snowstorm that year. My date (who I barely knew) worked for hours to arrange transportation from school into Boston because the commuter trains had all stopped running. By the time I arrived, we missed our dinner reservation, so we ate pizza at one of the only restaurants still open in Harvard Sq. Then, we took the T into Copley Sq to have souffle at the Ritz.
When we came up from the station, Copley Sq was deserted. The snow reflected the golden glow of the city lamps. The air was still. The snow fell gently adding to the two feet already underfoot. It was, without question, one of the best moments of my life.
A couple of years ago, wanting to spend more time with my family in UT, I bought small condo in the mountains. As I drive up the canyon and see the snow, I start to look forward to the warm meals and hot drinks by the fire. I look forward to seeing snowflakes outside my window. And, I’m getting better at skiing.
I hope that sometime soon we can go together!
wait — marleyfan’s a *guy*?
just kidding. but hey, man, i use the word lovely all the time. no shame.
and this was a lovely post.
I re-lived many snow-moments of my own as I read your words, Annie. Watching icicles form on my legs as I waited for the school bus; my 7-year-old self, required to wear a dress to school, found a way to smile instead of cry at the cold. Singing “We’ve Only Just Begun” as I soloed down the slopes my first season on skiis. Donning snowshoes and treking behind the lift-side of the mountain with friends in need of quiet. Getting up early enough, finally, to dust off my neighbor’s car before he got there to do mine. Pressing my nose to the glass following individual snow flakes fall to the ground. Wonder of wonders. Thank You.
Hello, Annie.
(I love your name, by the way.) Welcome to writing on the Whatsit. Hope to see more of you.
Yesterday, Steph wrote evocatively about attachment to place and, today, we see a very sensitive and logically situated attachment to weather.
I’m beginning to see that the Whatsit is definitely ALL about our attachments to “things” or “ideas,” even if they’re non-attachments– and this means that we may not be as post-modern as we’d like to think. (Can anyone tell that I’m immersed in Critical Theory this semester?)
Loved reading your post. See you soon.
hi annie,
welcome to greatwhatsit. i loved your post. beautifully written. i look forward to reading more from you.
trixie
Hi Annie and welcome! Despite my professed and enduring attachment to Southern California, I do miss a good snowstorm and all its attendant beauty and wonder. I distinctly remember a blizzard in Chicago that lasted an entire weekend. I mean, comin down *hard*, the whole time, Friday night to Sunday night. The cats spent two days in the windows, angling their heads to watch the snowflakes dance and swirl around. There’s nothing like the quiet hush a snow blanket brings to a big city, or like walking in the woods and hearing the flakes quietly tick through the trees and hit the ground. And, yes, it’s true. You can hear snow hitting the ground. Just ask Yoko Ono.
Thanks, everyone, for such kind and generous responses–and for the beautiful recitation of your own memories. I have been a big fan, regular reader, and occasional commenter on TGW for a long time, now. It’s a privilege to more formally join the conversation.
And yes, MF, I would love to ski with you, next time we’re both in Utah.
What I love about a good blizzard is the way snowfall upends reality. I remember after one of those record northeast snow dumps sliding down to the corner where Yoko lives and watching kids ski down the middle of the street. Times Square was strangely quiet, deserted except for the Naked Cowboy. No gridlock. No tourists. And it’s happening to the whole city, blanketing every one of us, impossibly, with sameness, until the snow falls back under our control.
I also love staring up at a winter’s night sky pregnant with snow and silence, the snow a diffuser over moonlight. Black darkness can never completely arrive under that white dome and that diffuse light – it is the same way you light an aging movie star, so the lines are never defined on her face, making each of us ready, Mr. DeMille, for a close-up.
I also love staring up at a winter’s night sky pregnant with snow and silence, the snow a diffuser over moonlight.
I thought, how often has Wendy stared up at a winter’s night sky pregnant? Then I read the rest of the sentence.
As if asleep, I have been traveling this week, lost in the dream that is being busy. And then this morning, as if waking up and looking out: your post. Fresh, crisp, sparkling and real, just like new snow when you least expect it. I am so happy to see you.
PS, Wendy, that is one kick ass comment, preggers or not.
Hi Annie, Love the imagery! Though I grew up in So. Cal, my dad used to take us skiing every winter, and newly fallen snow is one of the best sights, sounds and smells I can think of. I, too, look forward to inclement weather – it’s exciting and cozifying at the same time. Any of you ‘Southlanders’ (ugh) want to join me for a trip to las montanas?