Stella

I am working from home today because, well, I live in the northeast and after months of complaining that we have yet to have a proper workday snowstorm...bam, a blizzard in the middle of the March. Sorry, everyone. Finally my prayers to the snow goddess worked.

My dad says I'm officially a New Yorker again because while snow is beautiful and meditative, I tend to favor Fall and Spring. I am only tolerate of snow the weeks leading up to Christmas. After that, the idea of shoveling, bundling up, avoiding slush and of course the dreaded "yellow" snow makes me resent the soft yet thunderous flakes.

With snow everything is only beautiful and peaceful when it's coming down and we are all tucked inside. It's only truly magical untouched. Sans footprints, or car tracks or worse when it begins to dissolve. Snow, for me, is only beautiful when it covers everything and stalls time.

I feel a kinship to Snow. I had Scarlett fever when I was a baby and almost died and a snowstorm saved my life. My mom tells this story all the time because I enjoy listening to it. Her seeing me blue lipped and unresponsive. Her freaking out and crying because she thought I was dying. She wanted to have another child (me) because she decided to leave my father. She didn't want my brother to grow up alone. She felt she could survive leaving my father as a family of three not two. So when she found out she was pregnant, she decided after I was born that she would leave my dad.

When she found me unresponsive that night, she had no clue it was because of Scarlet Fever. She just knew I was suffering. She called the ambulance who were on their way to us but she was frantic and instead of waiting in the house she decided to take me outside in a snowstorm. Her family is from the south, from an Island off the Coast of Charleston that is full of superstitious people. I can only imagine that in her moment of sheer terror at losing the child, she thought nature would save me. Or at least that the snow would reduce my fever.

So she carried me outside. Knelt in front of our house where the snow was already 3 inches or more high and she used the snow as a blanket around me. When she tells the story, it always sounds like she buried me in a shallow snow grave. She covered my whole body except for head and feet until my fever resided. She says I didn't move for a few seconds but then suddenly jolted back with a cry, not of pain but maybe of life. And when the ambulance finally arrived we were both covered in snow while cradled me in her arms.

So I get snow. I understand it. I am thankful every year for at least one big snow storm to jolt back me back to life. Sure, I am elated about Spring and flowers and sunlight and skirts but I am always grateful for a little snow. It always seems so restorative and quiet because everything for a brief moment is untouched and stilled.