Blizzard Thoughts

During a blizzard, such as this week’s, I always think about

Anna Karenina’s train journeys between Saint Petersburg and Moscow.

my sister’s old Little House on the Prairie costume I was allowed to play in during the Christmas week, when the yard was covered in snow and I would bounce in the heaps, wearing the flannel dress on top of my padded pants and winter coat, pretending the wagon had broken down and I needed to travel on foot to the nearby village to seek help for my ailing brother who had lost a foot, and food for my starving family.

how Scrooge was as giddy as a school boy after his night of revelation and torment when he woke up in his own bed and realized he hadn’t died, after all.

the time I was studying Creative Writing in the Southeastern nook of the country, and it was winter and a snowstorm, and a group of us watched Little Women in the common room, the Winona version, and there were some who had never seen it before, and it was snowing and dark, and everyone was so quiet during Beth dying, and all of a sudden there was first the one sniff in the corner couch, then another somewhere else, then the whole common room was bawling our eyes out. We held each other and cried and cried, and then we went out to the balcony to smoke cigarettes and watch how it stormed. The next morning, there was so much snow we couldn’t get out of the dormitory. The winds had blown the heaps of snow firmly against the front doors of the building, and we had to call the main house and have someone come shovel a pathway for us, so we could go have breakfast.

Scarlett’s desperation when Ashley just wouldn’t budge when he came to call on Melanie and her during his leave on Christmas, and how she wanted to throw them both out the window after the two women had given him their Christmas gifts, and the husband and wife retired to their room for the night. I always wondered why on earth Scarlett, a feverish, gorgeous, lively creature, loved the frail and tender Ashley, when there was Rhett around to kiss and make passionate love to.

when E.T. was on TV on Christmas Day one year, and I was at my parents’ for the holidays, and mother confessed she had never seen it, so we watched it, all together, and mother, who hates the Harry Potter movies, The Lord of the Rings, and basically all fantasy and creature films, seemed to really enjoy the story.

buying the ceramic black lab statue with father, as a Christmas present for my sister. We were shopping for presents, it was just a day or two before Christmas, my dad’s usual time to do his shopping, and I was a preteen girl of eleven or twelve, possibly his beard for the day, because for some reason or other, I was with him that day, though usually he would do his Christmas shopping solo. I know a ceramic statue of a dog sounds pretty much like the absolutely worst thing one could buy another as a present, unless one despised and hated the receiver, but I’m telling you, it was really gorgeous, and my sister loved it. She had it on top of her television for many years.

driving home from the East, where I was going to college, during an especially nasty blizzard. The drive was four and a half hours on a clear day, and that winter afternoon it took almost seven hours, negotiating the low visibility, the horrible road conditions, the fear of crashing and dying, or just getting lost in the white noise, never to be heard from ever again, because I had, by mistake, driven to Narnia.

how the Plexiglas on the side of my balcony exploded off one time, during one of the season's worst blizzards. It was the night of Independence Day, and I had Sally over. We were making pasta and drinking red in the kitchen, when all of a sudden there was this loud crash outside. The wind was howling. I lived on the sixth floor back then, so it was windy windy, on top of that windy, and I couldn’t even open the balcony door, I just stood inside, peeking out, and saw that one of the sides had come off. I don’t remember becoming especially alarmed, only noting that hey, one of the sides of the balcony on my sixth-floor apartment has come off, to Sally, perhaps having had a glass or two of that substance that makes everything alright, and that I wouldn’t think about it today, but tomorrow, at Tara.

how I was walking to work one time, in a different city, on one of the coldest days of the year, it was minus thirty Celsius, very cold indeed, and the blizzard was just starting. I put on my wool pants on top of my thermal wear, two hats, my largest scarf, and the ancient furcoat, I know, I know, but it was my father’s old coat, from the days of yore when he used to look like Dustin Hoffman in Kramer vs. Kramer, and it sported a huge hairy collar that made me look exactly like Chewbacca, and I don’t even have it anymore, okay? Anyway, the coat was heavy, the way coats from the fifties or even sixties are, and the walk was a bit over five kilometers, but the weight of the coat felt comforting, that day, and I felt like I was the only person on Earth, walking in extreme conditions, and my lashes and cheeks and the little hairs on my upper lip froze and became white, and my breath was all vapor, and it was a fabulous and memorable walk.

taking a cruise, just before Christmas, with my sister, to Tallinn, when I was barely out of my teens. We were doing some Christmas shopping, checked out the Market Place which is legendary for its gorgeous Christmas Market. It was so cold, and snowing, and my sister had some of those tiny bottles of cognac in her purse, bought from the liquor store on the boat, and we stood in an underpass, a couple of girls, giggling, and took out the tiny bottles, and drank the contents to warm our freezing asses. Bottoms up! The taste was utter horror. The warmth that started spreading, utter pleasure. We still talk about that afternoon sometimes, and laugh at the memory of us in the underpass with cognac, drinking straight from the bottle.

reading Matthew Quick’s Silver Linings Playbook during the holidays. Ditto many a King, but especially Duma Key. Ditto Charlaine Harris’ Aurora Teagarden Mysteries. Ditto Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. I will always connect these books with snow, and frozen tree branches, and hiking in high winds, listening to music, coming back home for lunch, all Christmas foods, then curling up in my old bed with a book for the rest of the day. Especially with Duma Key, the events of which take place in sunny Florida, the association always brings a smile on my face.

how, no matter how hard the dark month are, how cold it becomes, and how much I always end up despising the sleet and the dirt before spring, I could never live in a place that didn’t have a good solid, thorough, and lively blizzard every once in a while.