Winter Storms

Our first serious winter storm in several years is headed toward Washington.  By early afternoon tomorrow, the snow should have started, and into Sunday night, sleet will fall.  After volunteering at a local theatre this afternoon, I headed out, like many Washingtonians, to run errands and purchase provisions.  By the time I dragged my parcels in a few hours later, I was hungry and tired, and my feet ached.

I am sure that there were preparatory activities of which I wasn't aware before the winter storms of my childhood, and I am also confident that, living in the Midwest where winter storms are inevitable, regular, and more significant, my family took the weather more in stride.  Washington is winter weather skittish.  (The story is that during their first winter in Washington the Obama daughters, accustomed to severe Midwestern weather, were incredulous the first time schools closed for a dusting of snow.)

Despite those realities, this afternoon, I reflected with reverie on the winter storms of my childhood.  Weather was less predictable then (or at least, I didn't know the forecasts,) and winter storms sort of showed up as a surprise one morning without warning.  I can remember my mother whispering in my ear as I slept, "It snowed last night." 

Never a morning person, I would normally loll around as long as I possibly could, but those four magic words would send me bolting from bed to jump into snow clothes and head out to play.  I confess that when I was over 50 that I can remember something similar when it snowed at my home in North Carolina.  I was grateful for the 7-year-old next door who I could use as an excuse for taking a few hours off from work to play in the snow.

The best winter storms were the ones that were too severe for my dad to go to work, and he would play in the snow with us.  The highlight was when he would make "snow cream," an ice cream-like concoction that he would whip up in the mixer with snow, sugar, milk, and vanilla. We loved it.  The very best was just having down time with the family.  All plans were cancelled. We couldn't go out except to play in the snow or shovel paths.  There wasn't much to do except romp in the snow, play games, drink hot chocolate, eat snow cream, and make grilled cheese sandwiches.  Quality family time.

As nostalgic as it was, sadly that time is passed.  Today when I thought about this winter storm, I was glad that I had worked off-site on Friday and had my computer at home in case a storm kept us home on Monday.  Now instead of an unplanned holiday of quality time with family, a storm simply means that I work from home instead of going to the office.

I am not sure that we can ever replace those spontaneous holidays, but when I came in this evening hungry, tired, and with aching feet, for an instant my mind time-traveled back decades and slipped into a hot-chocolate-snow-cream-and-snowmen moment.  There were many things about that era that were no so nice, so I wouldn't say that I'd like to go back, but just for tomorrow afternoon, I'd like to slip back to a spontaneous holiday moment.