Everything looks marvelously different when buried in snow. All the world’s imperfections covered, if only for a short time, in the fluffy, white, billowy bliss. Clorox for the world.
Growing up in Middle Georgia, I didn’t see it much – although I lived for it every winter. Snow days were like holidays. The mounting preparations seemed as hectic and as lively as Christmas. Mama would rush to the grocery store and talk of the bread aisle being empty. Daddy would worry over batteries, flashlights, and insulation for the pipes. My sister and I carefully laid out our boots, gloves, scarves, and thermal underwear – our “snow gear,” which Mama kept in one area on the top of the guest bedroom closet shelf. The anticipation lingered in the air of snow cream with milk, sugar, and vanilla, snowball fights, and angels on the ground. The worst disappointment in a child’s life occurred when the weatherman was wrong and the eyes opened to the same flawed world that was there when the eyes closed the night before.
The best snowy memory of my life happened in 1974 – two feet of softness. Our toy poodle, Debutante, stepped out the back door and disappeared – momentarily. We hovered around the radio that rested on the kitchen counter as my mama scrambled eggs and stirred hot cocoa, teasing that we’d probably have to go to school despite the blizzard. Daddy would laugh and savor the warmth of the kitchen before he had to flounder through the snow and ice to check on the cows and horses. Holding our breath, we pressed our ears to the speakers on the radio and listened intently to every word that arose from the announcer’s lips. As if in conspiracy with our mom, he spoke of factory closings, theater closings, meetings to be cancelled, and finally, the school list – closed indefinitely. Indefinitely – why that was like a lifetime, as though we’d been given a full pardon until we were eighteen.
The lights flickered as the heavy white stuff continued to fall from heaven, flooding the earth with wholesomeness. It didn’t take long before my mama, my sister, and I were sliding down the steep hill in front of our home on Mama’s best cookie sheets. I remember how young I thought mama was that day with the glow of coldness in her cheeks and the outline of snowdrops in her brown hair. Daddy, who ordinarily seemed inundated with the worries of work and bills, cast off his cares like his Sunday-go-to-meeting suit and thrashed his arms and legs wildly in the snow, revealing a six-foot, two-inch angel of white. We built a fire and gathered around its warmth as we played Barbies by candlelight, my mama pulling out her childhood Ginny doll and the clothes she’d made for her on her hand-cranked Singer as a child. She had a Sunday school dress for Ginny with hand-smocked roses and tiny pearl buttons. Daddy played the saxophone. Mama said it was time for bed. She tucked us in by flashlight, and my sister whispered in her childlike wisdom, “Oh, I wish every day was a snow day and the electricity would stay off, don’t you?”
A perfect world, covered in white.
By the end of the week, the dirt mixed with the melting stuff. School started back and people slipped on the ice. Mama was back to cooking and cleaning and washing. Daddy was back to working and worrying.
The bread aisle was full. And all the world seemed imperfect again.
“Oh I wish every day was a snow day and the electricity would stay off – don’t you?”
