I have blizzard envy. I’ve lived in Southeastern coastal Virginia for going on 8 years (!) now, and in that time it has snowed – truly snowed – once. Trust me, my best friend and I made snow angels, galumphed about like oversized children and went for dozens of triumphant bags-over-our-socks walks with the dogs, as the world of anything with wheels was paralyzed and receded far, far away. We’ve had “accumulation” a few other times (see pic at right, which cause school cancellations), but you tell me – does this really “count?” Oh, we do get “flurrying” (which always makes me hopeful; if there’s a flurry in the sky, I know about it) and super doppler weathermen, the notoriously bungling VDOT, and pansy school systems certainly have made a lot of hullabaloo over the years…but it’s only snowed ONCE I tell you! I find joy in extreme fantasies of being “snowed in” all winter, have the antifreeze-like veins of a tundra Ukrainian in my blood, was, actually, born in a snowstorm, and am really, really tired of the soggy, moulding mess that VA is half the time.
Last night I thought about all the slightly superstitious things you can do as a kid to conjure up the wondrous white stuff – wear your pajamas backwards, make sure all your homework is really done, pray. It began to rain, but W assured me he may have observed a little “wintry mix” when he took the girls out for their nightly walk. That gave me hope. As Supersnowstorm NEMO began making hyped headlines, threatening (or as I am imagining it, gracing) the northeast with untold lovely drifts (a word that coastal Virginians apply to boats without steerage or anchors), I went to sleep, remembering, remembering….
…blizzards. True, honest, historic blizzards, names ringing in infamy: “Blizzard of ’96.” The stuff of Little House on the Prairie (I thought Laura Ingalls was kick ass when I was a little girl, still do, actually). The kind of snow that is hard to walk in because it’s so high, that necessitates mom making hot cocoa from scratch as more and more falls, hushed, out the window, taking the night from a harsh black to a muted white, the street lamps glowing, encased ….or when you know it’s coming, you can feel it in your 12-year-old bones, a glorious understanding in the pit of your stomach as you and your sister snuggle up under an afghan endlessly tuning the radio, hoping, praying to hear “Pennington-Grimes” announced in the list of schools that have closed. And when it does, you whoop and dance, callooh, callay!!! Its almost as if you’ve willed it to happen!!! You are up earlier than you would have been for school, rushing to pull on extra layers, your moon boots and zip up that snow suit and you ARE OUT IN IT careening and cavorting!!! Off to the backyard to make forts, or to “The Hill” where everyone sleds!!!
But alas, the rain and coastal flooding has made our yard into Lake Guinea, caused our toilet to not flush (ooooold plumbing with no appreciable grade to the septic tank), and the dogs smell wet. Yes, you see, this is why I prefer snow. I could take WV out and show him flakes on your nose, flakes on your eye lashes. I could make snowballs and throw them to the girls, who dash madly about trying to crush them, we’d take a walk and it would feel like my own mushaboom – everything blanketed, cocooned in lovely, lovely snow.
Enjoy NEMO, my friends up north! Snuggle with your family, drink cocoa (or wine!) flakes whooshing through the air, to accumulate on every surface, play in it with your kids, with your dogs! Delight in your snow (and keep safe, of course)!!!
True Love and Homegrown 