I posted this to toutlemonde, off list, but it seems they were to go to
tout le monde, that is, on the list. so here it is:
Snow was deep where I grew up. It was on the edge of the prairie, near the
northern border, in the middle of the continent. One winter--I was 9 or
10--it started snowing and didn't stop for 3 days. The snow was above my
head. My sister jumped off the roof into a snowdrift that almost touched
the eaves and disappeared. We had to dig her out quickly before she
smothered down in there. I would swim over the surface of the snow--you
could only walk on the shoveled-off sidewalks or streets. That spring, when
it all melted, the river flooded.
When it is very cold--50 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, I don't know what
that is Centigrade--everything is very still and quiet. Not much is moving,
and cars won't start. There's no wind. So you can hear the snow creak when
someone steps on it, it makes a rather loud sound at that temperature.
Blocks away you can hear it.
Once I was invited to a birthday party--I was 7--with other girls from
school. The party was at a farm a couple miles out of town. I didn't like
to ride the school bus, I got sick, so I talked the others into walking to
the farm with me. It was easy in summer, just a walk across the fields. But
now it was winter. The snow was up to our waists, almost. Still, it was
pretty fluffy, not too hard going at first. But eventually it was hard.
We'd come too far to go back. I remember a girl crying, her feet hurt,
there was ice forming inside her boots. We were afraid, we realized the
cold could kill us. We climbed through the barbed wire fence at the bottom
of the farm's pasture and wondered if we could ever climb up the slight
slope, push on through that last quarter-mile of deep snow. But our
parents--gathered at the farm when we didn't get off the bus like we were
supposed to--saw us, and came and helped us to the house. My feet were
badly frozen, and hurt terribly when they thawed. Later, they were covered
with huge blisters. It took a long time, weeks, for them to feel normal
again.
I used to eat a little bit of each snowfall. I felt that it was necessary,
and when for some reason I missed doing this, it seemed that something
would
go wrong.
When I was older, I learned to ski in the woods. I'd bring matches, a
little pot, make a fire on the snow, make cocoa. A fire on the snow is
lovely.
AK
