Snow is a rare event in the South. It is something that causes great joy and panic; great dread and anticipation. We both love and hate to see it snow. Snow has a transforming effect on us. We become a people mad for bread and milk. The slightest hint of a snowstorm and people rush to the nearest grocery store and clean the shelves of these two items. I have never understood this, but it happens, for real, every time it snows.
Snow changes us from football watching couch potatoes to olympic bobsledders; flying down every nearby hill on trashcan lids, cardboard boxes, upside down aerobic step boards, fire pit bowls and whatever else we think will slide down a hill with us in them. People don't seem to own sleds here. I even saw people riding a person down the slopes.
Snow makes everyone a child again. We are amazed at how snow lays on the branches of trees and how it piles up on the hood of the car or the porch. We know deep in our hearts that each snowstorm is snowing harder and deeper than any time in the history of our lives. And the worst of each snowstorm is directly over our houses.
Snow for us is magic. Sound is muffled and a strange quiet pervades. Leafless trees are coated in wonder. A walk in the forest is a walk in wonderland through which the wind whispers something that you can feel but you don't quite understand. A hill becomes an adventure.
Snow in the South is temporary and fragile and most snows are on the ground no longer than a day or two. It is sad when temperatures change from freezing to sixty degrees overnight and the snow is suddenly gone. And with it the magic.
And life is too soon back to normal.
And the whisper of the wind can no longer be heard.
