Susan Swartz

When the red-eye to Boston landed I looked out the window and
chirped, “It’s snowing!”
“Yesss,” groaned the women sitting next to me, obviously immune
to my delight. Big deal, snow in January.
I should have confessed to my unusual snow lust. Tell her about
how every January I start to worry about winter passing me by. If I
haven’t yet managed to talk someone into going to Tahoe I feel
deprived. It’s a lost season if I make it through winter without
digging out thick wool sweaters and needing a pair of tights under
my jeans.
Yet it is unnecessary for me to sit in coastal California and
long for snow when I know people who live where winter is true and
cold. That includes my sister in Massachusetts which has been
walloped by continuous snow storms, record low temperatures and
experiencing what she calls “a real winter winter.”
I had called her during one white-out and she said she couldn’t
see out of any window in her house. Everything was sealed by snow.
I sighed with envy and asked if I could come for a visit. Sure, she
said, as long as I took the shuttle from the airport. Another storm
was on its way and she wasn’t driving into Boston.
The weather gods delivered. The newspapers warned of yet another
nasty blast of winter on its way. TV interviewers talked to
suffering locals about how sick they were of snow. But it was just
what I wanted.
The beach down the road from my sister’s house was covered with
unmarked powder, the salt marsh an ice sculpture, the clam flats
frozen over. We drove up to even snowier New Hampshire and the
spectacular White Mountains into a white-on-white world that looked
like a photo shoot for Yankee magazine.
I snow-shoed beside a river as snow sifted through birch trees
like fog sweeping into the redwoods. I threw myself into a snow
bank and made a snow angel.
I trace my shivery needs to growing up in Connecticut and
Pennsylvania. Winter meant rolling around outside like a baby bear,
trussed up in snowsuits, skating on ponds, sledding down hills. All
the fun stuff. I moved to California in my 20s, apparently before
I’d had my fill of snow and ice and before winter became a grown-up
hardship.
Come November I start decorating the house with winter images. I
stick museum postcards of snow scenes in the mirrors. A picture of
a woman dancing in the snow is on the bookcase. A photo of a woman
doing yoga beside an icy lake is on the bathroom wall. My Google
home page has a scene of ski trails through trees. Top of my
seasonal playlist is Sting’s CD “If on A Winter’s Night.”
I recognize the miseries of those who work, commute, scrape and
shovel their way through a prolonged winter. I was only back east
for a week but I can relate to chapped lips, flat fly-away hair and
dry skin. I suffered from leaky boots and inadequate head gear and
caught a cold probably because I went on a sleigh ride in a ball
cap instead of one of those dorky wool hats with ear flaps. Or
maybe it was sitting too long under falling snow in a hot tub.
Yet, I think that a “real winter winter” must be good for the
psyche. It toughens a person. Makes the blood quicken. Snaps you to
attention. The raw cold and icy beauty are sharp reminders that
Mother Nature, even when fiddled with, is still the boss.
The morning I flew from Boston temperatures were dipping toward
zero. Six hours later the plane landed in San Francisco where
temperatures had been weirdly warm in the 60s. The flight attendant
said it was now safe to remove our down jackets.
Susan Swartz is an author and local journalist. You can also
read her at www.juicytomatoes.com and hear
her Another Voice commentary on KRCB-FM radio on Fridays. Email is
[email protected].