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eftychia at 11:45am on 2002-12-05Something I was thinking about but forgot when babbling into livejournal earlier...
Children are expected to love snow. As a child, I loved snow. As a child I was told, "Wait until you're a grownup -- snow won't seem like as much fun." Later, as an adult, I heard other adults say the same thing to their children.
Adults seem to be "not supposed to" love snow. Unless we're on a ski trip, we're supposed to see it as an inconvenience, a hazard, uncomfortable, an obstacle, a bringer of extra chores; we're supposed to be upset at what snow does to schedules, and to fear the injuries and property damage it can lead to.
As an adult, I love the snow. Snow makes me feel more connected to my childhood. I do see the snow as "something I have to deal with" -- shovelling the sidewalk and steps, digging out the car, allowing extra time for travel ... but even when I'm dreading shovelling, or wincing at how much longer it takes to get anywhere, or finding out that something I wanted to do has been cancelled, that's never quite enough to shut up the kid in the back of my brain screaming, "Snow! Pretty! A snow day! A snow day!" and jumping up and down on the bed.
Watching the television news people this morning, specifically the ones who were broadcasting from outdoors, and noticing how they interact with each other, I get the distinct impression that my attitude is pretty common. It's like adults are "supposed" to not like the snow, but (many?most?) of us still do. Or maybe we're supposed to like it but pretend we don't. Reading comments from Elboids when the first flakes fall in various cities provides additional evidence for this hypothesis.
[bleep] that. Put me in the "ain't gonna bother to pretend not to like it just because grownups are supposed to pretend they don't like it" column. It does get in my way, it does make extra work, and sometimes being out in it makes me cold and wet, but fercryinoutloud, it's SNOW! Wheee!
tired
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Other than the driving in it with idiots surrounding me this morning, it's so amazingly beautiful out. The lawn surrounding the Cathedral of Learning has these gorgeous tree-lined walkways, and since it's still snowing pretty hard, you can't tell if people have walked there at all. It's just beautiful.
I agree with you, SNOW!!!! WHEEEEEEE!
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Even if they're not being actively dangerous, someone who doesn't know how to drive in snow can spend a lot of time being in my way and slowing me down. (Hmm. I have a story for that. I think I'll post in my my journal.)
*smile*
"It didn't occur to Kerrigan that trying to catch a snowflake on his tongue might not be dignified until he heard someone behind him clearing his throat, and a hissed whisper accompanying it.
"Until that point, Kerrigan had been out, knee deep in snow, not far from the inn in which he was being housed, marveling at how the snow softened the city of Meredo. It muted the gay colors splashed on houses and hid the red of the tiled roofs. Thick garlands of it covered the skeletal branches of the trees and little drifts had collected in corners. The thick flakes fell slowly, then swirled and eddied, sometimes dancing down the street, other times falling from branches and eaves in a puff of snow.
"Kerrigan had seen snow before on Vilwan... certainly never the quantity that had fallen in Meredo, nor had he been allowed to go out in it.
"Just raising his face to ths wky and feeling flakes melt against his cheeks had made him laugh. His delight mirrored that of children playing in the snow, launchign snowballs at each other, building forts, shrieking as they closed and threw, then ran as a volley from playmates chased them back. Other children lay on their backs, flapping their arms, making snow-Gyrkyme, while yet others crawled into barrels and careeneed wildly down hills, screaming all the way.
"Yet Kerrigan's smile had not been for the snow alone... was the attitude displayed. As he wandered into the snow-choked street, he had impulsively hand-packed a snowball and thrown it at a hitching poas---missing horribly---and a man gathering wood had smiled at his effort. Some kids threw at the same post from further away, and they cheered and laughed as one hit it. A woman brushing snow from the steps looked at him and nodded, smiling as frosty breath wreathed her face."
That kid cheering in the back of your head is in all of us, I think....
Re: *smile*
*nod* That was what I thought; it's just that "grownups" are 'supposed' to pretend otherwise, it seems.
I like the quoted passage almost as much as your concise commentary on it. Thank you.
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However, I also don't mind living somewhere where it doesn't snow.
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Even living alone where I have to shovel the sidewalk myself with the fibromyalgia and all, and worrying about being able to pay for heating oil, I felt a little cheated last Winter. *shrug*
But I can understand not missing it.
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(Actually there are two comfy chairs (and tall shelves full of books) in the picture in my mind, and a friend is sitting in the other chair. We both stare out the landscape, and have one of those slow-motion conversations where long, comfortable silences are punctuated by unhurried observations and comments once in a while, with much more being communicated than is spoken.)
Seriously, that scene's been in the back of my mind for decades now. It's on my lifetime to-experience list.
But it has to be really good cognac. And a very good friend.
I of all people should like snow...
I think my dislike of snow has a lot more to do with being an adult in another sense: My parents aren't around to give me car rides places anymore, and now I have to deal with rude bus drivers who make me climb through snowbanks, rude drivers who splash me with slush as I'm walking on the sidewalk or waiting for the bus, incompetent or lazy snowplow operators or snow shovellers who don't scrape the snow and ice off the sidewalk/parking lot/walkway where I have to walk, and all those other hazards of getting around as a non-driver in a world built, as the slogan goes, for drivers. (You just have to worry about driving in snow, which is a whole 'nother kettle of fish.)
Add the ataxia, and I've suddenly got a big problem -- especially considering that I'm not as young and resilient as I used to be, and if I rack hell out of myself because I fall on my face or my dignity on something hard covered with ice, I can't just stay home from school for a few days until I heal up. (Right now, I can't even really afford to stay home from work -- for any reason!) Which makes me sort of paranoid and generally annoyed with Life, The Universe, and Everything, especially considering we're currently under 45+ cm of snow with no end in sight.
That said, I am hoping to go skiing at least once this winter, since I now live in the same city as my ski equipment and the skier most likely to give me a ride to the hill... ;)
S.
Re: I of all people should like snow...
When I went back to reread your posts, I did notice that the main thrust seemed to be, as you said here, "all those [...] hazards of getting around [...]". (The "as a non-driver" part ups the ante, but I don't think it really makes it a completely different caldron of seafood. The gist is still inconvenience and danger associated with travel. You're just faced with the fallout from a different group of idiots.)
BTW, I've got a terribly unimportant rant about the shovelling of sidewalks brewing too, which may or may not ever get posted.
And I envy you the skiing opportunities. I've only been twice, when an employer picked up the tab, but that's enough to show me how much fun falling down a mountain with boards on my feet can be. I want to go again. (I wonder how well my fibromyalgia will deal with that particular type and intensity of physical activity.)