Snow Day

You lay down, ready for sleep. But the whistling of a sharp and vicious wind keeps you awake. You settle into your slumber and it moves in silently through the night. Over the hours, inches of it pile up. Against the walls of your house, the fence around your yard, the space in your mind. You awaken and rush to the window:

Snow.

The forecast called for it, but it had been wrong the five times previous, as is typical in Oklahoma. But this time, it’s real. The grass, trees, and rooftops are covered in a blanket of white. Finally.

The first snow day of the season.

The same enthusiasm that I’d reveled in as a boy had not changed. I’d wake up and anticipate the “CANCELED” message for my school district to scroll across the bottom of the screen as the news broadcasted pileups and power outages.

As an adult the roads are still as treacherous. I report my absence to a begrudgingly sympathetic work and make plans for this rare and special occasion. The snow day started then much the way it does now.

As a kid, the first order of the day was to scout out the surrounding terrain. To wander around and LOOK. Familiarize with the different world around. See how the snow piles up in drifts. Observe the icicles forming on the edge of the roof. Admire the even blanket unbroken by human feet. I was very careful to watch my step during this tour. Make no frivolous move. Once your foot breaks through the ground, there’s no going back. Every crunch of the soft white powder leaves a permanent imprint on this delicate landscape.

The fascinating thing about a snow day is how much the world changes. I had grown accustomed to dry brown grass, filthy gray concrete, and dull black rooftops. Bare trees dotting the dead and dry landscape typical of late fall and winter.

But now, everything was different. Every non-vertical surface was covered in a thick coating of white. The blank street had two parallel trenches dug by cars brave enough to venture out into the storm. In the afternoon, a second pair would carve itself adjacent to the first. With the skies gray and the world still, the world had become completely alien.

A notable thing about the snow day is how quiet it is. Sound travels farther when the air is denser, and with none of the usual machinery of urban life, you can hear for miles. Stand still and listen: a branch snaps up the road. Church bells count the hour from ten blocks up. A lone engine rumbles a mile away. And then: silence. So quiet, you can hear the ringing in your ears, occasionally broken by the wind.

Sometimes it’s a gentle wind. A light breeze rushing past at irregular intervals. The storm has passed. A light snow descends in the fallout of the cold front. No branches sway. No flags flop. A serene environment of silence and peace. An opportunity to wander around in the foreign form of such a familiar world without threat of disruption.

Other times, the wind moves sideways. A high and threatening gale comes in horizontally, cutting your exposed skin with little crystals of ice. The temperatures dip into the single digits and cut through every layer you bundled up in. The cold freezes water pipes and ice snaps power lines, plunging the city into crippled darkness.

Your snow day becomes a frigid nightmare.

But blizzards are rare in these parts. Usually a few inches of snow fall without risk to water or electricity, and the day remains a novelty. You’re free to wander around, make snowmen, throw snowballs, and enjoy the winter wonderland.

As the drifts pile up and the chill reaches into your bones, you come in to warm up and relax as you would on the weekend. That’s exactly what the snow day is: a surprise weekend.

It’s an unexpected reprieve from normal life, as important now as it was as a kid. Not just as an interruption to school or work, but also as an interruption to the world around us. Even the most observant eye can miss the details that surround us in the day-to-day. But when it is stripped down, the details become much more appreciable. Listen to how the wind whips through the bare branches of the tree. See how little piles of snowflakes pile up in the cracks of the bark. The smell of fresh snowfall. It’s distinct, yet indescribable. But easily identifiable because it’s so rare.

Perhaps that’s another factor in why snow days are so special. They’re rare in Oklahoma. We treat them like special occasions, associated with Christmas and winter break. But snow has come as early as late October, and as late as early April. Five solid months of potential winter weather, which usually amounts to an average of six inches in the central part of the state, and only four or five days of snow.

It doesn’t come often, and it doesn’t stay long, so enjoy it while it lasts.

The sun fades behind the clouds and sets on your snow day. The world is cast in a shade of blue. Not melancholy blue, but tranquil blue. The wind is still. The air is clear. The stars are starting to peek out. You go to bed with the reassurance that you can sleep in tomorrow. In a few days, the snow will be reduced to odd patches and gray slush, bringing an end to your unexpected vacation. But that’s in a few days. When you wake up tomorrow morning, the ground will still sparkle in the sun.