I have said for years that snow makes the Midwest much prettier in winter. The other three seasons of the year are beyond pretty in and around Kansas City, but winter can be gray, brown, bleak and dismal without the cover of snow.
I found our blizzard two weeks ago delightful in what it left behind for us to look at. It coated every branch, blade and rooftop. Even where the snow blew it from those perches, it took it to where it could form drifts and deep piles. The nights were clear, and the snow shone rather blue and silver in our urban setting. It reminded me of rides I took between Boonville and Jefferson City, Missouri, while a child.
My grandparents lived in each of those towns, and the journey between them at the holidays from my vantage point in the back of my parents’ car was amazing. We took a two-lane road that lead us through small farming communities and mile after mile of family farms. The snow whooshed and swirled across fields barren of their row crops and formed the most wonderful castles of snow on the shoulders at the north and west sides of the road as the wind worked its magic through the taller weeds and fences. It could look like icing dripping down the side of a cake or bubble bath left to swirl and foam in a filling tub.
Once, on a rare trip between the two places with my grandfather, he pulled over so that I could see just how tall and deep those castles were. When I stepped down into the ditch that makes the edge of most secondary roads in Missouri, I was engulfed in snow to my midsection. I remember vividly being elated and wishing I could tunnel deeper into it right then. A big, great hand pulled me up and out and back to the waiting car. One word describes that experience to this day: fantastic.
I like snow. I can even, most days, embrace cold temperatures. Both make me happy, but I’ve mentioned the cold part in earlier blogs.
What I have not liked in the past week is what the slightly warmer temperatures have given us – huge melting piles of snow and, sticking out of it, miscellaneous detritus carried to the pile by snow plows. The piles aren’t so much melting as looking like they are experiencing atrophy with a touch of gangrene. The piles are black and gray and ugly. Some have even taken on the appearance of that lovely landscaping folly of the 1970s – lava rock. Not our best look.
And the warmer temperatures this early in the winter game make me worry that the flowers and trees will start a journey to spring that will be cut short by what I am sure will still be a bit of winter.
I have always stayed warm and hopeful for spring by surrounding myself with great colorful scarves, socks, and the occasional brightly-colored sweater. I’m still saving my money for a once-in-a-lifetime sweater from the Oslo Sweater Shop. My retail research leads me every year to their website, the Gorsuch catalogue, and, sometimes, L.L.Bean. I am still building in my head the perfect sweater. Is it a cardigan? Is it a pullover? Is it tunic length? I’m getting close…
All I know it that I will be wearing it when my son and my niece and I tunnel our way into a monster snow mound on a cold winter day within the next few years. The snow plows have been building a great one near our public library on the Plaza, but I’m keeping my eye out for one formed by nature that looks like the one I keep near my heart, on a back road in Missouri not too far from home.
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