It’s snowing this morning in Holland. Has been for nearly two hours, tiny flakes that are falling straight down, easily mistaken for raindrops except that raindrops don’t fall that slow. Not that it will matter, because as we used to say back in the Old Home Towne, “It won’t stick.” The ground is too warm, so the flakes melt as soon as they settle. It was the same yesterday, when it snowed around 7 a.m. and again at noon. Those were larger, heavier flakes, the kind that spiral down lazily but no matter: they didn’t stick, either. Again, the ground’s too warm. How is that possible? It’s like this: Today is March 8 and though we did experience freezing temperatures for two days last month, those temperatures didn’t stick, either. The last time I saw snow that stuck was for four days in December 2021. Before that? Memory fails.
First snow has always been my favorite day of the year (UPDATE: The flakes are larger and heavier now, this may yet lead to something). If you have any manner of weather sense you can smell it before it arrives, just as you can with rain. It was one day you wanted to be in The Loop, Chicago’s downtown shopping and business district, especially with someone you were kind of sweet on but had yet to let them know (yes, I speak from experience). There’s something magical in that first snowfall, the moment when you look to the sky and … here it comes. It changes everything about the day, may even add a sense of innocent intimacy if you’re with the right person. (There are those who will object to my use of the word “magical,” serious adults who have left such childish notions far behind. Well, I object to people who feel their golf game is an acceptable topic for conversation. I’m a pretty serious adult when it comes to that.)
(UPDATE: The Sun’s out and the snow – if the wind is to be trusted – has moved off in the general direction of Belgium, and nary a flake stuck.)
A common misconception about snow - brought about by poets and storytellers down through the ages – is that it occurs in silence. Nothing could be further from the truth. A snow-covered field may well be silent until you start to cross it. But falling snow hisses. Even sizzles. But you have to be somewhere quiet – like a large field or, best of all, a forest to hear it. And it’s better if you’re alone. Most humans find it extremely difficult (if not flat out impossible) to remain silent for more than a minute or two. They have to do something. Can’t just be for less time than it takes to unwrap a stick of Wrigley’s Doublemint chewing gum. And that’s a shame, because you need silence to hear the snow when it’s falling. As noted above, it hisses and sizzles, which is brought about by the irregular shapes of the flakes – “no two are alike” – as they twist and spiral and weave their way through the air. Of all the sounds of Nature, the sound of falling snow was my favorite. I say was because a number of years ago, I suddenly found myself with a condition known as tinnitus, for which there currently is no cure. It’s brought about by the deterioration of the inner ear, leaving in its wake a state of constant noise, like static. In my case the volume level fluctuates between a soft hiss – yes, like that of falling snow - and the buzzing of a tree full of night insects in mid-July. Happily, this morning the volume was turned way down, so much so that when I bundled up and stood in the back garden, I could imagine I was in an Illinois forest preserve, listening to the snow as it tumbled out of the sky. But now the snow’s gone, the volume has crept up to a still tolerable level, but way too loud to be mistaken for snowfall. Ah, well.
I’m a man of simple pleasures, a cheeseburger and fries kind of guy. I miss the smell of burning leaves in autumn, listening to a baseball game over a transistor radio in the garage while working on a car. Watching as the early winter air brings a pinkish tinge to the cheeks and nose of a young girl, and the sound and smell of falling snow.
“… he seemed both present and remote, a living vision of that which has already been left far behind by the flowing streams of Time.”
(I’d say that pretty much hits the nail on the head.)
*** Please read Being An Introduction (Dec 12, 2022) before posting a comment. ***
First snow is magical -- I agree! And I still have an old transistor radio to listen to an occasional baseball game when I don't care to watch it on the big screen.