On Saturday, my friend Cathy posted on Facebook this photo of her Pennsylvania neighborhood.
Photo by Cathy Gaines Mifsud
This is what it looked like in my Texas neighborhood. The temperature was about 55 degrees.
Photo by Sophia Dembling
I’d rather be where Cathy is.
Golly, her photo made me homesick for the East Coast. It stirred in me a deep pang of recollection of hunkering down indoors while the world outside transforms. You wear the cuddliest clothes you have, curl up on the couch, watch movies, eat too much. The light through the windows is blue, you can practically feel the snow muffling the house and streets. You go out for a tromp through the pristine white, then retreat back to the warm womb of home.
I love Texas winters. I really do. Especially in February, the cruelest month in New York City, when it seems all the world has turned to slush and the last vestiges of summer warmth in your blood has long since been chilled.
But up there, the first snow is always a novel thrill. You fall in love with it all over again and forget how beaten down you’ll be by February.
Or maybe it’s just me. I’ve never spent a winter in a really cold, snowy place other than NYC. I’ve only visited. My friend Helen in Vermont posted this on her status line the other day: “Winter is finally here–four below this morning, colder tonight as the polar air digs in. I’m at the acceptance stage, but maybe should go back to being pissed.”
I wonder how people in North Dakota or Buffalo, New York feel about the first snowfall.
Well, at least Dallas isn’t as bad a New Orleans, Miami, and San Diego. December should not be sultry. That’s just wrong. We get a little snow. It doesn’t last, but it’s nice when it falls. We get temperatures cold enough to justify a fire. (Sometimes we build fires even when the temperature doesn’t justify it, leaving the door so the house doesn’t get too hot.) We get to wear sweaters, sometimes even jackets and gloves. So that’s nice.
But not as nice as this.
Photo by Cathy Gaines Mifsud
We’ll be skipping Three-fer Friday this week, what with Christmas and all, so Jenna will check in on Wednesday and I’ll see you next week. I wish you all lots of warm fuzzies for the holiday.
We got the earliest snow I can remember this year in North Alabama.
I’m no fan of cold though. I prefer a very mild winter and having to travel to visit the snow. It makes it that much more special if you have to go somewhere to see it, right?
I prefer to stay in places where it snows. Have spent more than half my life in such places and still love it. I experience a thrill everytime I walk out into chilling cold with multiple layers of clothes on, thick vapours coming out of mouth and nose. Its just too good to ever get enough of.