I miss snow

“I miss snow.”

If anyone predicted I would ever make this statement, I would have laughed in their face. Miss having snow? The same snow that through most of my life has been the bane of my winter existence?

Growing up and living most of my life in the Midwest, winters have always come with snow. And snow more often than not has been a nuisance. In high school, snow caused me to drive my car into the ditch. When I told my dad (after walking home), he said we’d not be able to get it out until spring. And I thought he was serious. Out on a double-date, I managed to get my car stuck in a snowdrift across a rural road and my buddy’s dad had to come rescue us and our less-than-thrilled dates. I’ve spent nights in strangers’ homes because of closed roads, nights in airports due to canceled flights, and days trapped in my own home due to “blizzard conditions.”

For literally decades I have shoveled sidewalks, run the snowblower up and down driveways, swept decks, and scraped car windows. Ice and snow have closed hiking trails and put me on my butt, despite wearing grippers, more than a few times. Snow has made driving slow and nerve wracking, especially on those days when I was expected to be in the office, even when the school at which I worked was closed for kids and teachers.

So how can I say “I miss snow?”

This winter in Minnesota has been unusually warm and exceptionally dry. Groomed ski trails did not happen so all the trails in area parks were open for hikers. Roads stayed open. No shoveling or scraping or scary driving conditions. Winter coats and gloves stayed mostly in the closet. Dog sled races, cross-country ski events were canceled, and the ice fishing season was extremely short (and somewhat dangerous). 

And I now realize that despite its nuisance, I miss snow.

I’ve long been grateful for when a snowstorm closed school (see Blessings of a snow day) both as a student and as a teacher. I have fond memories of my children and grandchildren (well, and myself) on sleds, tubes, and toboggans sliding down snow-covered hills. Snow abundant winters created great downhill skiing conditions at Mt Kato and Welch Village and Lutsens where a friend and I would often take our sons. I even miss the cross-country and snowshoeing opportunities in the parks nearby, despite being glad the trails are open for hiking if you don’t mind mud.

And even a light cover of snow can give an ethereal beauty to the most common-place lawn, road, or park giving cosmetic cover to even dry grass, littered ditches, and barren trees. And as I look out the window this morning as birds swarm the feeder while snowflakes swirl, I recognize the loveliness of the snow event itself.

The old expression “be careful what you ask for since you might just get it” seems apt now that spring is here and the likelihood of snow enabled fun and beauty is mostly behind us. Sometimes it takes the absence of thing before you really appreciate it. 

I miss snow.

Comments

[Becky]

I miss it too here in Cleveland!

[Miguel Guhlin]

I miss the snow, too. Having grown up in Panama, I miss the idea of it. I miss the blizzard where evil dwells, the snow flurries that obscure my vision, the slip and slide of wheels on an uncertain path. I miss the snowplows making their way up the avenue, the snowmen gathered on the lawn. I miss the snowflakes, one and all, like a banker misses his coin.

But then, when sadness gathers six feet deep at my door, my tears forming crystals on my cheeks, I remember, I grew up in the summer humid heat of Panama. Snow is but a dream, where mosquitoes are unborn, iguanas wouldn't be caught dead without a borrowed fur coat. I remember that dark rainstorms, drops so large they can kill a baby frog, renew the pools where tadpoles spawn, form the ocean waves. I see them once more, those summer days, bereft of snow, and I miss the sun of my youth.

Now that the chill is gone, I wonder what I will dream for tomorrow. A day without sun in another land, a grey overcast day without a blanket of snow. I wonder what I will dream of, the future or the past, or will I have a dreamless sleep, empty of expectation and sun and snow, and all that men dream when the earth wraps its arms around them.

Let the snow go, friend, and ask instead, "Where are your dreams gone?"

;-)

I wrote another response but it won't appear at https://mgblog.org until 3/31/2024.

Thanks for letting me have fun,
Miguel