First Snow

It snowed two days ago. It was the first snow of the winter, at least four inches deep. I think it was the first time I didn't look out the window in awe. I simply cleared it off my car and went to work. I didn't even look at the snow. I avoided clean white patches, keeping them in the edge of my peripheral vision. I stepped carefully over icy slabs. I didn't look to the freshness, the clarity of pure white. It snowed, and I hardly noticed.

The peaks hold snow tightly. The mountains cradle it in the crevices and the needled branches of old firs. The mountains hold solace. They claim whiteness in midwinter. The snow keeps the rocks pure, covered from the sin of bitter winds.

It snowed. And I hardly noticed.

Last year - wait, two years ago - we built a snowman. We gave him vicarious life and laughter. Dad brought out the gloves and the hats and told us we had a chore. We all had to go outside to help. It wasn't just us, but the cousins too. Our disgust melted when we found what chore he meant: we were required without choice to pile high heaps of icy snow to make an enormous entity. The kids felt important somehow, giving life to the ugly beast, rolling thick cinnamon rolls of whiteness. After the first gigantic roll was complete, there was a greedy elation at the thought of his potential. After we heaved the second roll on top of the other, the top roll just as wide and cumbersome as the first, we hurried in a maniacal frenzy to get the ladder. There was a blissful sort of rushing and heaving and dumping and talking, carrying 5-gallon buckets filled with dirty snow (we scraped with our hands until the grass and dirt came with the whiteness). He consumed all the snow from the grass, all of it bound in the layers of his rolled-up belly. The kids brought it from the backyard even, towing heavy loads in the red wagon. And at last, we stood back in awe at our creation. He was 10 feet tall and four feet wide and became taller in time, each bucket of snow piling precariously on the next. I watched all this from the window, feeling somehow a part of the desperate energy. Our snowman, I thought, wanting to claim him. He was an admirable sort of hideous.

In spring, I tried to see past him. He took months before deciding to die, first shedding inches of ice and revealing hidden flaws like old grass blades and pebbles. He grew dirty in time, covered with a tinge of smog which he left us at last. The grass he sat upon was yellowed and mashed, each blade pressed this way and that, pointing in all directions of chaos, pressed to the firm earth. Each blade giving its life and perfect form to the awkward being. Pounds upon pounds, layer upon layer, roll stacked upon roll.

It snowed. And I hardly noticed. This year it rained. For two weeks it rained. It snowed the other day. And I hardly noticed.

In Ohio, it snowed and all life stopped moving. Time ceased to be, schools closed. We hulled up in our homes, feeling the age of the wood under our feet and hoped to survive the long winter. The snow was about 3/4 of an inch deep. Like magic, we listened eagerly over the radio for the signal from Canton. The go-ahead to climb back in bed and read a fat novel. The consent to stop moving at all, and just wait in silence for the end of coldness. Sometimes the voice said, "Sleep, children." And sometimes it says, "No such luck." And we groaned and climbed on the bus with weary fists.

It snowed... and I hardly noticed.

One snowless year. I think it was snowless. The memories are rewritten in my mind, I think. I remember what I see in dreams, and I forget what I see in dreamlike memory. It was snowless, I'm sure of it.

The memories of New Year's Eve spent with Grandma and Grandpa and all the cousins. A hundred or so, if I remember correctly from the dream world. So many New Year's sleepovers that I can't remember which one I won the lip gloss when I shouted "Bingo!" or the one when we girls crept up the stairs to tease the boys or the one when someone (was it Jake?) got locked in the bathroom or the one when someone (was it Karen?) got burned on the stove in the darkness of hide-and-seek. Or the year of the pinata, the year that convinced Grandma that such things are deadly, an invitation to sugar-filled half-crazed children to wack anything nearby, including the beloved grandma holding the pinata if necessary. The year that confirmed the unspoken truth that pinatas do not belong in the house. I'm not sure how Grandma and Grandpa could stand us, all of us readily destroying their peace of mind and nearly destroying the structural soundness of their home, jumping with too much vigor and running too quickly.

But this year was snowless. It was the year of the frozen moment. At midnight we rushed out into the yard. I claimed a pot and spoon. I banged it with all my might, but it didn't seem loud enough, leaving a deflated feeling in my heart, like I was missing out on something really important. So I pulled out the noisemaker in my pocket, a stealthy backup. The plastic tubes that sound like a duck when you blow it with the right pressure. Too much air at once comes out as silence. The noisemaker, though somewhat more satisfying, seemed to die in the wind and my anxiety not to miss this moment made me blow too hard. Sometimes it came out as a puff of air through an open tube.

Across the street, the door opened and a few old men emerged. They smiled at us, and then something glorious happened. They began to dance. My hand dropped to my side, my breath gone, watching them, hungry to remember. They jumped up and down to an uneven rhythm. They danced a jig to our cacophony. I looked to the stars, desperate to remember this. I must write it down, I thought, and time froze, waiting for their dance to stop. Silence drew around me, cousins tooting horns and banging pans with no sound. I only saw the men moving, their gray hair shimmering in the golden porchlight. Time stopped and I felt a pain. I worried. I worried that I might forget.

It was snowless that year. I think.

It snowed the other day, and I hardly noticed.