Friday, January 21, 2011
Big Snow
We’re sliding through the ice, shoveling snow, wrapping ourselves in blankets in front of the television, heating soup on the stove, and preparing our hearts for the likelihood that winter weather will continue for at least ten more weeks. It’s time to consider a move to Florida, isn’t it? Easily half of my retired colleagues now live there. My wife and I spent Christmas in Florida, which isn’t a lot like Christmas. It’s a lot like summer. There you cast off your coat and scarf and inhale the warm moist air. You fill your chest with the entire sun-infused sky before exhaling the last puff of dank Midwestern darkness. Leaving Michiana behind is just that simple.
But why, then, only days after returning from vacation, did I find myself, in early January, in the midst of a blizzard, brimming with joy at the prospect of being snowed in, trapped in ice without end, 1,200 miles from sunny South Florida?
Of course, there is nothing wrong with Florida. The moment you arrive there in winter, you feel like a member of an exclusive club. You meet people all the time with whom you share a wink and a smile with regard to the weather. Day by day, as your face tans and your mood expands, you forget your home in the upper Midwest. Sure, there are some native Floridians who take for granted the subtropical pleasure of walking around in a tee shirt on Christmas Day, but the rest of us feel as giddy as freed convicts in a world in which the prisons have been demolished.
In my case, though, I had no choice but to return eventually to South Bend and hunker down. I’m no wintertime wimp, but when we arrived home to the biggest snow storm in decades, at first I almost cried. That Saturday, I woke up to a foot of fresh-fallen snow, and the storm continued. My wife and I bundled up and gathered our snow shovels.
Already, several neighbors were tunneling out of their houses, firing up snow-blowers or bending their backs to the repetitive task of scooping snow and heaving it into towering mounds. Not for hours or days would there be any point in trying to move our cars. The city snowplows wouldn’t visit our street for three or four days. We were all just preparing for a time in which walking and driving would be normal activities again.
The moment I stepped outside, I felt a difference. I could hear it in the voices of neighbors who called freely to one another across the distances. I could see it in the way the younger home owners and their sons and daughters soon broke from their own yards to help clear the drives and walkways of elderly neighbors. Now and then, a pickup truck moved slowly down the street, and in the tracks, neighbors from up the street walked to the small grocery store at the end of our block. Whether we recognized them or not, we shouted out greetings; and they answered, smiling, and commenting with amazement on the obvious fact of the amassing snow. The very predictability of their exclamations and of our happy replies had the effect of building a communal space under that dome of clouds. It was as if we were all ten-year-olds again, open to wonder, able to form friendships in a flash, eager to laugh at anything. Shoveling had never seemed easier.
If a Midwesterner in Florida experiences a tingling thrill at the thought of all the shivering he is escaping, we Midwesterners here at home, in the midst of a monumental snowfall, in the face of what looks so much like a disaster, may share something even greater – a sense of surviving together, the deep pleasure of recognizing one another, once again, afresh, in the warmth of our native, humble, heroic lives.
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A random pick from more than 460 Michiana Chronicles -- refresh the browser to see another set:
April Lidinsky -- More essays by April
Joe Chaney -- Big Snow / More essays by Joe
Ken Smith -- More essays by Ken
Jeanette Saddler Taylor -- More essays by Jeanette
Heather Curlee Novak -- More essays by Heather
David James -- More essays by David
Elizabeth Van Jacob -- More essays by Elizabeth
Jeff Nixa -- More essays by Jeff
Louise Collins -- More essays by Louise
Jonathan Nashel -- More essays by Jonathan
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About the series
Michiana Chronicles is a series of radio essays by Jonathan Nashel, Louise Collins, Joe Chaney, Jeanette Saddler Taylor, Jeff Nixa, April Lidinsky, Ken Smith, Heather Curlee Novak, David James, and Elizabeth Van Jacob.
Michiana is the region of north-central Indiana and southern Michigan roughly centered on South Bend, Indiana.
Michiana Chronicles airs on Fridays at 7:35 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. on WVPE (88.1 FM), the home of public radio in Elkhart / South Bend, Indiana.
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Recent pieces
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Mandala -- I remember that year as the spring when my dad roared down the driveway at our home near Emory University in Atlanta in a new Austin Healey, a roadster, the proper name for a British rag-top sports car. This one was red with all the trimmings and served as waterproof glue for the closest period of bonding between a father and son. I say “waterproof” because the top on that car was a tight fit from the start, and had maybe fifty snaps to secure it around the cockpit; and of course after a couple times getting wet it shrunk, so there it stayed, behind the back seat squab—British for the seat’s backrest—for seven years, molding in peace. When it rained we got wet, so we cultivated raincoats and laughing. I didn’t mind a bit. By David James.
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