From the Vault: Waiting For Snow (from February 2012)

My dining room window draws me in more often than not, especially on cold February mornings when I hope to see my breath reflecting off its smooth surface. And more often than not I am disappointed by what I see, or more precisely by what I don’t see, for there is never any snow in the yard, or on the street, or coming down from the heavens above.

For as far back as I can remember, February wasn’t just about Black History, or just about Valentine’s, or even just about that ubiquitous groundhog. It was always more so the definition of what winter should be. February meant bitter cold temperatures. February meant snow, and lots of it. If July could be counted on for sweltering heat, February could just as much be counted on for blistering cold, but this year it’s not. Some would blame global warming, that amazing buzz-term from the mid-90s that seems to have gone out of favor, until now. I wonder where Al Gore is, probably somewhere smiling. It does seem to be an inconvenient truth, eh?

“I’m waiting for the cold to wrap me in its beauteous embrace.”

So I look out of my window and I think about what could be. I see big, fat flakes coming down softly to land on the pin-point grass, then melt out of existence, followed by the next round of flakes in an endless symphony of white. I see small, rain-like flakes coming down faster and faster, blurring together in a cacophony of metaphorical winter. I can even smell it at times, that fresh, clean smell of a winter’s morning eclipsing all other smells. When I look out my window I see what could be, and I cry.

Winter is Santa Claus and sleigh bells. Winter is snowmen and snow forts. Winter is meteorologists making insane predictions of snowfall possibilities. Winter is three months of a pure, unadulterated return to childhood, and it’s been hijacked this year. I don’t like it.

So I’m waiting for snow. I’m waiting for that one moment when it all comes together, when the groundhog is finally right, when the dreams of so many come true. I’m waiting for the cold to wrap me in its beauteous embrace. I’m sitting in my dining room window, and I’m waiting for snow.

Sam