Snow Days in the South

Nothing better.  Well, nothing better in the winter, anyway.

It starts the night before when you're peering out the window at the cold rain falling in the spotlight outside your parents' bedroom, willing the rain to freeze, willing it to change over to white flakes.  You alternate between studying for the big test tomorrow and running to the window.  "C'mon, c'mon," you say to the rain.  You study as best you can, but you keep hoping it will get just a little closer.

The alarm goes off the next morning and you listen to the clock radio, listen to the DJs on Z-93 calling out the school closings.  Clayton, Dekalb, Fay-yette, Fulton.  You're so happy to get the news that you don't even mind the mispronunciation.  Why is Fayette County such a difficult name?  Then it's up and to the window to look out at a world turned white overnight.

After breakfast it's time to bundle up and go out to play in the snow.  Long johns, gloves, scarves, coats with hoods, boots.  Once bundled up, you feel a bit like the Pillsbury dough boy, ready to waddle out into the snow.

The first steps outside are my favorite part.  It's so quiet!  Everything is muffled and still, except for the crunch of the boots in the snow.  I like looking at the snow on the branches of the trees and on the leaves.  I like how everything slows down and I just notice the icicles and snow.  It's harder to walk, slower going.  You have to be more intentional.  I love that first walk out into the snow before footsteps mar the pristine surface of the snow and before things start to fall on it and before it starts to shrink.  Sometimes the snow is still falling and you can catch the flakes on your tongue, like the Peanuts characters.

Some snow days are spent devising ways to sled - flattening cardboard boxes to slide down the neighbors' hill, or taking a walk back to the steep hill by Steve Newton's house and taking turns with neighborhood kids who have real sleds.  Once I even got to spend an extra snow night with my friend Jill Babb, and we went sledding down one of the hills AT NIGHT!  Not sure if I ever told my parents.

Sometimes snow days are spent trying to make a snowman which can take up most of the snow in the yard.  Or snowball fights.  Sometimes I would just walk around, seeing the world all new and fresh and bright and cold.  Watching the steam of my breath make clouds in the air in front of my face.

Eventually, we would be cold and wet and come traipsing back in, shedding layers of clothes as we walked through the garage to the house.  Usually there was a fire and hot chocolate to welcome us back to the warmth.  Usually dinner time held the stories of the adventures Dad had getting home from work.  He always made it - he was smart about snow! 

Snow days were magical, festive holidays.  We didn't want too many of them because then we had to give up days of spring break or summer.  But we wished and hoped for them as a break in the middle of winter.  They were a time to slow down, to pause and notice the world around us, to take a "time out" from normal.

I feel a little sadness now that I am grown.  Seeing snow fall still brings that magical, festive air for me, that feeling of excitement and hope.  But it is often quickly replaced by the disappointment of having to cancel events, the challenge of digging out the driveway, and the anxiety about driving on roads I have no business driving on.  I am alternately irritated and saddened by the anger that I hear from the grown-ups about all the stupid southerners who don't know how to drive (like we are flamingos who should suddenly be expert ice skaters) or the anger that the southern cities don't own more snowplows.  It's almost as if the snow is a personal insult to some people, falling just to irritate them or ruin their day.

What's supposed to happen, grown-ups, is that you're supposed to have a holiday.  A day to stay home and play, to notice the silence of the snow.  It's not so magical up north, at least it wasn't when I lived in Chicago.  It was mostly drudgery to be endured.  But down here where it happens so rarely, I still remember that feeling of waking up in the morning, waiting to hear if my school was closed, and then plunging into a winter wonderland of adventures.  It's snowing!  Want to go out and play?