SNOW

Blizzard on 49 Fairlawn - early 1960's

Hey - I just realized I had a "blog" of types before when I put some writings up on the web. So I'm gonna cheat and copy one or two here - and the pictures I put with them.


SNOW DAYS - (written August, 2003)

You know what I love remembering? One of the things I love to think back on is snow days. The whole mystery of snow falling and the way it hushed everything, even danger (or so I thought). My dad would always turn the heat down at night. Down to maybe 55 degrees. Then, upstairs, we’d all go to bed under thick quilts and 2 or 3 blankets, with our windows open an inch or so, and our doors shut. It would be so quiet. No cars would be out in the snow. We lived on a quiet street in a small town anyway, so traffic was never much of an issue.
Perhaps when we all went to bed there would be no hint of snow. As a teen I never watched the news or the weather forecast, so I was never forewarned of snow – it was always a sweet surprise. I would go to sleep under the usual circumstances, and then, perhaps around 2 or 3 AM I would wake up. I’d open my eyes and notice right away how light my room was. There were no streetlights near our house, so that would not be the reason – those were farther down the block. In the small bedroom where I slept, there were two side-by-side windows that took up at least half of the outside wall. My sister had made ceiling to floor drapes that could be opened or closed to any degree, and I usually closed them just enough to frame the windows on each side. There were white, light, breezy sheers underneath the drapes and covering the windows – but they were transparent. In the middle of a snowfall night, the whole room would glow white. The snow outside fell until it covered the blacktop driveways and macadam road, covered the brown grass and bare tree branches – with a cascade of reflective white. The snow on the ground would reflect off the snow falling from the lowering clouds, and an ethereal light would pervade my room. Snow day. No doubt about it.
But first, I would crawl out of bed, clasping a blanket around me for warmth, my feet icy on the cold wood floor…..and I’d throw open the window and lean out and join myself with the snowdrops. There would be no wind, no sound. If, in the distance, a dog barked, the sound would be swallowed up, dulled, no echo, under the thickness of white flakes. If I thrust my hand out the window, the flakes would lazily float onto my skin, their delicate intricacy melted by my body heat.
The whole world seemed so safe under that blanket, so protected, so soft. Of course I knew better, but at 3 AM on a snow day eve, it was magic to imagine it so.