Snow On New Grass

I like snow. I like to watch it fall. I like to walk in it at dusk when it glitters like crushed diamonds. I like to frolic in it like a little kid. I even like to shovel it! I scan the skies for dark clouds with the diligence of a UFO researcher. I stock up on Hershey's cocoa in hopes of hosting my nephews for a sledding party. And I watch the weather reports and track the storms as they travel across the country to the East Coast.

I was up in Erie one Christmas, and it snowed every day, on top of the 18 inches that had been there since Thanksgiving. They can handle it there, being accustomed to the constant lake effect storms. They nonchalantly drive through whiteouts over the speed limit and go about their business. Schools never close there. It was no wonder the radio talk show guys made fun of the one foot of snow Philadelphia was expecting that weekend. "Oh, my, Philly's expecting a foot of snow! Those poor people! Reports are that you can't beg, borrow, steal or buy a snow shovel in Philly this week. What do they do with them, throw them out every year?"

It's SUPPOSED to snow in the winter in Philadelphia, but you'd never know it the way people whine like every snowstorm is the first they've ever seen, and the way weather forecasters glumly announce the approach of the "dreaded white stuff." I don't want to hear a weather forecaster's personal opinion about the weather, anymore than I want to hear a newscaster's personal opinion on the news. They should just report the weather and keep their negative sentiments to themselves!

Snow is just part of the magic of a four-season climate, and on good years, the weather in this part of the country is to die for, no matter what season you prefer.

If you like spring, well,. I can't remember the last time we HAD a spring in Philly, but from what I recall, they are as breathtaking, if short-lived, as an azalea blossom. Tulips valiantly poke their heads up through the newly-thawed ground, and dainty pink and white dogwoods herald the arrival of Easter and Passover. Nothing gives me more pleasure than watching children hunt Easter Eggs in a yard flush with newly-bloomed rhododendron. Unless it's the first Saturday that is warm enough to hang out the wash..

If you like summer, you endure massive traffic jams on the White Horse Pike so you can bake on the sand at the Jersey shore in the heat and humidity, lulled to sleep by the rhythmic rush of the waves. Rosebuds awaken from their slumber and in the space of a day are transformed into fully formed bouquets. And the evenings resound with the song of the of cricket and the shrieks of children chasing fireflies.

If you like autumn, you laugh when the kids jump into and scatter the mound of red, gold and yellow leaves you just spent two hours raking, and join them, because the air is crisp, the sun is bright and the region is ablaze with color. Chilly mornings give way to warm Indian summer afternoons, and the afternoons lead into cool evenings with a tinge of approaching winter in the air. Squirrels chatter and gather acorns for their Christmas stash, and if you stop and listen, the cheers and whistles from nearby high school football games echo over the neighborhoods.

But if winter is your favorite season, it just isn't winter until you've shoveled your stoop or sidled your car down an icy side street. It isn't winter until the nephews arrive with their sleds to slide on the hill next to your house, ignoring your pleas to remove their boots as they track slush onto your newly scrubbed kitchen floor on their way to wreak havoc in the bathroom.

It isn't winter until you find yourself in a panic-stricken supermarket, or frantically searching for a pair of boots ten minutes before you must leave for work.

And it isn't winter for me until I take a stroll through that very first early morning snowfall that bows the pines and powder-sugars the ground and I feel like I've just wandered into a masterpiece.

The years that we have a dearth of snow, I mourn. We've have been "blessed" some say, most of the past few years, by snowless, rainy, winters, and what looked like an early spring one year when trees and bushes and grass and flowers prematurely bloomed in February. While I also thoroughly enjoy a good rainstorm, eight weeks of tedious, intermittent cloudbursts would have broken the spirit of a Seattle native.

But a late March squall one snowless winter provided me with the "snow fix" I so desperately needed, and I took a walk that morning in snow that had fallen on new grass.

Crows and squirrels and rabbits scavenged, cavorted and darted through the whisper of white that fell, but barely coated, newly sprouted lawns. A snow suited toddler giggled and stumbled wide-eyed through his first experience with the cold, white wet stuff falling from the sky. An Irish Setter bounded away from his master when unleashed and a bare hedge rustled as a flock of wrens made their escape from the spirited beast. The spruces and pines bent under the heavy weight, forming a natural canopy over the hushed winter wonderland.

And nature proved again that it is the only true art. An artist may capture the beauty of a frosted evergreen, but you have to BE there to FEEL it.

It's become a ritual of mine --embracing the first and last snows of the season, just after dawn, when my footprints are the first. As I watched the calendar slide into March that snowless year, winter was ending before I ever had a chance to greet it. A late-March, Sunday morning fall that melted before ten was my opportunity to say hello to winter.

Sadly, however, it was at the same time I said goodbye.