(So, you’re actually seeing this a few days after it happened. I guess telling you kind of defeats the purpose of pre-posting, but I felt dishonest not saying that.)
I leave the little big city at midnight because, as usual, that’s the time of day I get my shit together. I drive out of town and up up up into the mountains. Soon there is snow on the ground, a comforting blanket of ice crystals. THere are tracks in the road and I get out to look. Lynx? Why would a lynx cross the road? I wish I were one of those eole who can read thought and emotion in a track.
I drive down, down, down and the snow is gone. I miss it. It didn’t feel like winter at all, it felt like giving birth to something new. Soon I’m going up again and snow starts falling from the sky. I’m driving into it, it’s driving into me in that wierd optical illusion that happens with snow and headlights. I can get lost in the saces between me and snow, sometimes, but I don’t, I just drive.
This snow is special. It’s not like the snow you’ve got down in the lower forty eight. I just want y’all to know that. Our snow is crystalline and dry. It is not poofy crystals pregnant with wetness like the snow down there. You can not make a snow ball with it. If you tried it would slip through your hands like flour, like little individual crystals that don’t mind laying together but don’t want to become part of each other.
I stop when I find a pullout that I’ll be able to drive out of when I wake after a nights snow fall. I wind my scarf around my head and walk through the snow. It crunches and the earth is strong under my feet. But I want to get to bed while the van is still warm, so I hurry through letting Bro out to pee, changing clothes, etc., and climb into my warm bed with Bro.
Oh yeah … I feel you, Tara, I do. I love that frozensmoke that looks like snow but feels like feathers and falls like dreams. It’s the stuff of waking sleep and dark mornings in Denver with the window open at 25 degrees and you wake up shivering. I miss it so now that I’m in the land of sun & scorch. Damn this sun – I want cold and clouds.
I imagine your snow is even better than my memories of Mile High, but it still hearkens in me wonderful times I’ll always cherish.
I am so waiting for snow. Quiet snow….peaceful, cold, sleeping earth, and dreamtime. I want to be like a bear and hibernate all winter. There is snow on the high high peaks of the rockies, but not down in the valley yet. i guess last year it didn’t snow until dec, we arrived just in time for it. but when it came, it really came!!
Ooooh, sounds so lovely. Los Angeles is so polluted and ugly – I long for the woods, and reading your words just stokes my longing. Stay warm & safe, Tara. At least safe enough to not get hurt badly (but unsafe enough to enjoy life!)
The snow is so different up there. So dry!
Can I knit you anything warm?
Get to the woods, Lizzie!
Susan, I’ve been wearing those socks you made me for the last few days. They’re veery warm. 😀