How to Make Me Happy

"Does snow just make you happy?" Amy asked me in December when we had that cold snap and we were taking a walk and her nose was freezing and I was practically bouncing for joy.

"Yes," I said.  It's the Minnesota girl in me, I'm sure.  I just go a bit crazy-happy in snow.

It is just so incredibly WHITE.

And it's bright.  In fact, when there's snow on the ground, there's so much light in the air you feel like you could breathe it in.  Even at night, you look outside and there's all this endless, generous whiteness, solid and waiting in the darkness.

The weather reports earlier this week hinted at snow in that way that Oregon weather reports do, and you learn to calm down the Minnesota girl inside and tell her it'll probably just be a few flurries, at best, and if there's any accumulation, it'll be up in the hills, not here, so don't get your hopes up.

But on Thursday it started snowing in the morning, enough that many local schools were closed but not enough to call off Linn-Benton Community College, so Ben went to his 8:00 class and Paul dithered about whether or not to call off school.  All those self-tests people were scheduled to take, and HE wouldn't have any trouble getting there and back.

I reminded him of the inexperienced 16-year-olds driving their siblings to school.  He finally made the call to cancel school for the day, and Linn-Benton closed early as well and Ben had a dicey drive home, going 35 or less the whole way.

Friday there was no question about school.  It snowed, and snowed, and snowed, steady, all day.

Normally when it snows in Oregon there's a flurry of snowflakes, and I stand at the window and watch, thinking "Yes, yes, you can do this, little snowflakes, please please, keep coming, be strong," as the flakes finally stop melting when they hit the ground and actually start to cluster in the green grass.  But, far too soon, the falling flakes get slower and bigger until they are like cotton balls, filling the air, and then they stop.  Within a couple of hours the temperature rises and all of the pathetic little stash of snow melts.

Not this time.

It kept coming, fast and steady, with small, insistent flakes, hour after hour.

It covered the roads, the sidewalk, the cars, the grass.  It grew, inch by happy inch.

I found my winter hat in the attic, the moosehide-and-rabbit-fur hat that Mary Kanakakeesic had made for me when we lived in the North, and I went out walking in the snow, the air full of white flakes, falling falling falling.  I turned my face upward and caught snowflakes on my tongue and was entirely happy.

"There is no such thing as bad weather.  Only inadequate clothing."

This is how crazy I am about snow: we had to cancel our ladies' retreat at the coast because of the storm, but I was still happy. Yes, that retreat, the one that I look forward to for months before and chuckle about to myself for weeks after, recalling late-night conversations, and eat amazing food at, and just hang out with friends in an utterly relaxing, rejuvenating weekend at.

If it had to be canceled, snow was the best possible reason, unless it would be my kids or sisters coming to visit, something like that.


So I stayed home and went on walks, tromping happily in my black boots and big coat.  I even made a snow angel.

By Saturday we had about 9 inches of snow and only a few miles north of here they had a lot more.  This is also what happens in Oregon: you go to bed at night and lift the shade to take a last peek out of the window at the snow, and then in the morning you wake up and everything is dripping and the green grass is showing again.

But Saturday morning there was, if anything, more snow on the ground.

Then it started in with this crazy rain.  It wasn't hard or fast, but it stuck to everything.  And it laid a crusty layer of ice all over that lovely snow.


 
Which put an end to my happy rambles, because the ice wasn't thick enough to support me, and neither was it easy to break through.  So each step was a hard stomp downwards to try to break through without your foot sliding off toward the walnut tree first.

Paul, undaunted, went back and forth to the warehouse during all this.  One time, before he left the house, Jenny asked him to bring a shovel home.  She wanted to do this cool thing she had read about in books: Shoveling the Walk!

So he did, and she did, and I took a picture.
 
She also had great fun tossing crumbs out onto the snow for the birds, again like people in books.  The birds loved it even though their little feet kept scootching sideways on the ice, which made them nervous but it was just too cute.

 Jenny also brought in an ice-covered branch and quoted dramatically from The Wreck of the Hesperus:

 

The rattling shrouds all sheathed in ice

with the mast went by the board

Like a vessel of glass she stove and sank

Ho ho! the breakers roared.

Today, Sunday, we stayed home, unheard of for this family on a Sunday morning.  I ventured out and took more pictures and watched bits of ice come showering out of the pine trees like little clinking bits of broken glass.
 
Now, this evening, the temperature is up to 43 degrees and the snow and ice are going going going, off the sidewalks and roads, sliding down off the roofs, crashing off the trees, steadily slipping away.

But my family is ready for school and normal life, and so am I.  While I am sad to see the snow leave, I feel like my Minnesota heart has been feasting on it for four days and that was far more than I would ever have thought to ask for.

And it's February.  Soon there will be daffodils.  No, I'm not afraid of the weather killing the daffodils, because Oregon daffodils also have Minnesota hearts, and they don't mind the snow at all.

Quote of the Day:
Teenager: Sometimes you have those days. . .today was one of them. . .one of those days when you just sit there thinking, "EVERYONE is an idiot."
Me: More tea?
Teenager: I would LOVE another cup of tea! I declare I feel like I'm trying to drown my sorrows in tea!
[If I did hashtags this would be #drowningmamaindrama]