On Snow

January 30, 2019

I’m a pretty simple person, really, when you get right down to it.  If you want to make me smile, just grant me snow or a puppy (to make me ecstatic, grant me snow and a puppy).  Either one has the power to shift a titanic mood.  But when it comes to snow and its relative rarity in tidewater VA, even after some 37-38 winters here,  I have never been able to get enough.

As a child growing up in southern CA, I experienced snow several times by simply travelling east –to the local mountains, or the Sierra Nevada, or to VA.  But it wasn’t until March of my freshman year at W&M that I actually witnessed snow falling.  A late weepy storm came up from the south and began to yield snow one evening.  I lead the pack as the girls from my hall spilled out of the dormitory doors to dance around in the heavy wet flakes.  My RA, Teena, observed years later that she would never forget my expression.  Better than the high off a strong cup of coffee, snow seemed to me then and still does now, one of God’s most miraculous inventions.

Don’t get me wrong, I realize winter weather can be treacherous and deadly.  In his “News from Lake Woebegone” monologues, Garrison Keillor often spoke regularly of Mother Nature’s nefarious intent at this time of year: “Winter wants to kill you.” (Maybe not so much in VA, but certainly in MN!)  However, he often balanced intent with result, ruminating on snow’s singular capacity for softening and reconciling an otherwise barren landscape.

People often say they don’t mind a “snow event” from the safety and warmth of their own home.  But I am one of those happy fools who must be out in it.  In February of 1989, sixteen inches of snow fell, completely burying my little red Fiero in a thick, impenetrable blanket.  So Gary and I cleaned off and jumped into his old Ford truck (the one where the frame was slightly catawampus on the chassis), and with firewood packed over the rear wheels for traction, spun donuts in a local vacant parking lot. Gary was from western PA and grew up on deep snow.  He knew how to drive in it and could tell many hair-raising tails regarding it, from smashes and near misses on the PA Turnpike to riding the westbound guard rail (while headed eastbound) on a heavily iced Coleman bridge.  Put simply, he hated snow.  But the fact that I loved it so, amused him to no end.

One February, we made an unexpected trip to eastern KY to visit my father-in-law. Not surprisingly, it snowed while we were there.  Of course I was entranced and Gary was disgusted (and worried about getting back over those WV mountains).  Nonetheless, I zipped up my parka and “waded” out into it – while all of the sensible people stayed inside. Gary and his Dad, seated at the kitchen table, drank coffee and smoked cigarettes, watching me bemusedly from the window.  It wasn’t until many years later that Gary shared with me how much his Dad loved snow. How had I missed that?

When Samuel Fred, our beagle-mix, was still living and in his prime, he would dash out into a yard transformed, only to stop in abrupt surprise:  What is this stuff?  We would play catch, throwing him snowballs that he leaped and dove for with great determination, only to bounce back up wearing a muzzle full of snow and a puzzled expression.  Where did it go? I saw you throw it. Are you hiding it?

One year, pre-Gary but post-W&M, I hit the snow trifecta.  A dear friend from W&M, Jane, invited me up to her parent’s house in Westfield, NJ, to visit between Christmas and New Year’s.  By day, we travelled into the city, taking in the museums and sights, including the Rockefeller Center Tree (which was much smaller in person than I expected, but no less beautiful).  In the evening, by the glow of an enormously fat Christmas tree, we played with the family’s two newest Corgi pups, Barney and Abbie. Later we walked through Jane’s neighborhood while I snapped photo after photo of beautiful old homes draped in multicolor Christmas lights, alight and reflective in the snow.  I was in absolute heaven.  I was convinced this was the life I was intended to live.

But snow, when it does not materialize, is a terrific disappointment.  I have learned not get my hopes up — regarding forecasters as only slightly less duplicitous than, say economists.  The more certain their promises, the greater the crush when flakes do not fall.  But there is also a degree of unreliability on the part of snow. It often does not give much advance warning.  For instance, I missed Williamsburg’s rare and unexpected white Christmas several years ago because I was in CA for the holidays.  Snowfall is the much-adored friend who knows she holds all the power in the relationship.

But snowfall is quickly forgiven when she decides to grace us with her bounty.  For every time the snow line won’t budge east of Richmond, there is a deeply cherished moment when it does – and allows an evening like the time my family drove down a quiet, cozy, empty DOG Street (back when they still allowed vehicles to traverse it) after navigating I64 in a driving, two-tire track storm one January. As we rolled slowly towards the Capitol, the snowfall had ceased, and we savored the hush and lamplight that enveloped us.  When we finally, reluctantly coasted into the Hospitality House, the lone front desk clerk greeted us with: “Are you the folks from CA or OH?”

No matter how long I live, such moments will never amount to enough.

But the best kinds of storms are still the unexpected ones.  Like the day I wrote the first draft of this blog in early December, when the snow falling was not expected to accumulate, the temperature gauge fixed at 33 degrees and holding.  But the transition to a cold rain never occurred during daylight hours as the snow line moved further north and east from its bullseye on central NC.  The light dusting delicately held by the bushes and trees at 8am became 5-6” of heavy, wet snow by 5pm,  causing limbs to crack and pop ominously, and transformers to blow, plunging some neighborhoods into darkness.  As it turned out, the evergreens and soft woods  took it seriously on the chin — our yard was littered.  And tidewater stayed cold for a week, causing the snow to linger.  (It was delightful — unless you had no power — and holiday-appropriate.)

Between you and me, I will be severely disappointed if that December storm turns out to be our only snow for the season – all it did was whet the appetite for more of the same.  How else will I get through the stubborn intransigence of February, the longest month of the year?