As the leaves fall, the geese wheel overhead in their southward flight, and the jackets come out of storage I am looking forward to snow and fondly revisiting the snows of my life. Most of them occurred many years ago when I was young and suffered no inconvenience from a day spent in the snow, besides chapped skin and numb fingers and nose. As one grows older I imagine the snow turns into a mere annoyance, nasty gray piled up stuff on the sidewalk, a driving hazard and the reason for delays and postponements. I hope, now that I live in a place where it snows that I will throw off my boring adult responsibility and go flying down a convenient hill with a whoop of joy as the snow sprays out behind me, with my own children piled on the sled in front of me.
My first recollections of snow are from my time in Michigan when I was in elementary school. My dad was stationed outside of Battle Creek, and we enjoyed many good snows- I mean lots and lots of snow. I remember it piled high on either side of our driveway. I remember my dad shoveling and shoveling and then having to do it again the next day. I had my own pair of cross-country skis, and I remember how hard it was as a little child to keep up with the rest of my long-legged family on the trails. My brother and I and the neighborhood kids spent hours and hours building snow forts and snow men and snow angels- there are really so many possibilities with some good packing snow. One fort we built was so solid we actually had a candle burning inside. I don’t remember much sledding in Michigan, and I’m assuming it’s because it was pretty flat in those parts. White Christmases were commonplace there, and it was so lovely-snow frosting the wreath on the front door and tucked snugly in the corners of our windows.
The clothes I used to wear for the snow are fun to remember too. Moon boots were my favorite- big clunky, and soft, they were lightweight and pretty stylish for kids back then. Then I had the ski-pants overalls that would go “whisk, whisk, whisk” when I walked. They were poofy and cozy, and I didn’t have to worry about my pants falling down when they became soaked from the wet snow. Top that with a poofy coat and all that was left was my choice of mittens or gloves and a hat. I remember a pair of mittens I had that had a string holding them together that was made to run behind my back and down my sleeves, so I never lost a mitten. As I got older, I guess that was less necessary, and it was also slightly uncomfortable. I always liked fun hats with pom-poms on them. The struggle with hats was itchiness. I remember getting so sweaty and itchy from those hats, but they really were necessary if you wanted to keep your ears.
My most favorite snow memories are from the years we spent in Jefferson, Maryland, a small town about an hour from DC. We lived in a wonderful house that backed up to a dairy farm in the rolling hills that were largely undeveloped back then. It really was a dreamy place to live all year round, but for now I will focus on snow days. It snowed quite a bit in Maryland, not as much as Michigan of course, but enough to really have good times. We lived so far out in the country that sometimes we couldn’t get out of our driveway and, darn it, we had to miss school when it snowed. Our neighbor had a large truck with a snow-plow attachment, and he would plow our cul-de-sac when the big trucks couldn’t get out to us.
We had the old wooden and red metal Yankee Clipper Sleds that you could steer with the front handles, and since our yard was a hill, we would sail down again and again. At some point we acquired the inner tube from a tractor tire, and we would walk over to the farm that had steeper, longer hills, and climb on this massive, bouncy inner tube and fly down. My brother and his friends built a snow ramp that we would aim for, and it was incredible fun launching off the ramp, landing helter-skelter. The hard part was tramping back up the hill for another ride. We always wished for a ski-lift, but we were kids with boundless energy and we didn’t really care. I remember going inside after a day of sledding- exhausted, rosy cold cheeks, wet and chafing, but so happy. Hot chocolate awaited. It really makes me smile to remember.
I loved waking up at night to see it snowing outside my window. It was so magical, peaceful, to see the flakes dancing their flighty downward dance. We had one street light in the cul-de-sac and it would create a spotlight, an outward reaching glow that allowed me to see the falling snow. I would get back in bed with the delicious hope of a snow day in the morning.
I loved lying in the snow ever so quietly beside one of our Christmas trees that we had planted. (We bought live trees and planted them each year after Christmas.) Little birds would hop about in the tree and send down little avalanches of snow. They would hop near me, and I had to be very still so they wouldn’t fly away. I loved the feeling of being part of this wild outdoor world that I treasured.
When the flakes start falling this year, my heart will leap up and I will bundle up the kids in the snow boots that I have already purchased, and their whispery snow pants and poofy jackets, wooly hats and gloves, and we will play in the snow, roll in it, eat it and have a wonderful romp. Then we will go back inside to the enveloping warmth of the the kitchen, sip hot cocoa - spinning a whole new web of memories for me and, I hope, wonderful first-snow memories for my children.
Some friends from Mobile let us use their beautiful home, about an hour west of Asheville. It sits up on a winding road, surrounded by woods. You have to actually ford a stream to get up to it! See the picture of the waterfall? That flows down over the road, and the footbridge, where you see the kids, is below the road. The picture of me and Mac is on the back deck, where they have birdfeeders and we saw several bird species including two of my faves, the black-capped chickadee and the tufted titmouse. The house also has an ivy-ringed pond, with cool, clear water, and a swing off to one side (but no swinging into the pond). It is just a peaceful place, perfectly situated. We loved it and we thank our friends so much for opening their home to us!
