Fresh Fallen Snow

Tennessee weather is some manic, unsettled creature that could be written by Tennessee Williams. This past week saw 50 degree swings in 24 hours. It snowed, slightly, and everything shut down. It happens every winter. We get our one or two snows that actually accumulate, and all the Northerners are quick to make fun of how the South shuts down for snow. And the Southerners are quick to cite the fiscal costs of salt trucks and plows for mountainous roads that only get icy once a year. We just wait a couple days until the temperature hits the 60s and melts everything. The snow doesn’t stay.

Southerners know how to appreciate snow. We anticipate with the excitement of a child. We watch it fall in wonder. We made and cancel plans around it. We let our routines fall away to the mercy of nature.

It’s not often in modern society that the environment shapes our day. We’ve developed our environment-proof bubbles. AC and heat and street lights and snow plows and storm drains. All good things. But that means we are accustomed to temperate, lit, dry places; we don’t really notice the differences outside beyond whether or not it’s jacket weather. Our day-to-day lives stay the same during sweltering July afternoons or rainy February evenings.

Our forefathers kept rhythm with nature. Yes, out of necessity, but I believe it did them well. Rise with sun. Go inside when dark. Siesta in the heat of the day. Hunker down in winter. There is waxing and waning, work and rest, a time for everything. And it’s beyond our control.

As I’ve begun to follow the liturgical calendar, I’ve noticed that the annual flow seeped into me. A season of growth, anticipation, preparation, celebration. Birth, work, death, judgement, rest. The endless summer of parables. A feast that turns an ordinary Wednesday into something special.

It’s healthy to break out of the industrial era grind: set hours, set days, repeated and repeated with an occasionally three-day weekend. So that’s why Southerners are right to stop for snow. It’s a temporary hiatus. It’s an opportunity to stop and stare at nature in excitement and childlike wonder. In a few days, it will all return to normal, so give in to the moments of interruption.