The Tyrany of Snow

I'm a Southwestern boy. Or a kid of the South Plains. I prefer Summer. Then Spring, then Fall, in that order. I'd leave the fourth option blank if I could.

I don't like the winter.

I do not understand the snow or the hold it has over people. I've only rarely truly wished for a White Christmas. I've had occasion to live in it, ample experience driving in it. I've camped in it and made forts in it. I've had snow ball fights and caught snow flakes on my tongue. And at the end of it all, I still don't understand the love of snow.

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It occurs to me that perhaps my problem with snow is really tied to questions of photography.

But later, learning photography, trying to get anything to work in the crisp white was a nightmare. On film, snow either burns too brightly, reflecting all manner of light and making everything else that much hard to capture or it washes everything out. There is a lot of compensation that has to go with taking pictures amid the white stuff.

That unpredictability frustrates me to this day, and now it extends well beyond trouble with photography. Snow disrupts driving and parking and playing with my dog and lots of things.

But I do think it really started with that question of how to deal with snow in pictures.

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Okay, okay. I'm not trying to say there's nothing good about snow.

Certainly when I was a kid, I liked snow. Even growing up in Texas, I did wish for it on occasion: just a dusting in my home town could shut things down for days. There was a magic to snow that certainly appeals to kids. Every time there was the rumor of snow, I was sure this time would be the big one: weeks out of school, snowmen at every house. Of course, I also believed I'd one day own a car that could turn into a robot. By and large though, most of us have learned to leave those childish snow dreams behind. Sure, we still hope for a snow day, but aside from that, snow is more nuisance than blessing.

Don't believe me? Come shovel out my car the next time I'm stuck in a drift.

Yeah, that's what I thought.

If you're one of the snow fascists - those folks who can't hear anyone say anything negative about it - this is as close an acknowledgment as you'll get from me that you're not completely touched in the head. Enjoy your hollow, snow covered victory.

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Sitting in the car, waiting for the heat to catch up and for the blood and warmth to return to my hands, I wondered why I would have done this. The list of "should haves" and excuses grew out of control, like a bean stalk in a fairy tale

• should have worn gloves ("But I can't photograph in gloves.")
• should have brought the 35 mm ("But cold weather is hard on the gears.")
• should have brought someone with me ("But there's no one here.")
• should have called someone ("But what to say?")
• should have called more often ("But who has the time?)
• should have... ("But...")
  
• should have... ("But...")
  
• should have... ("But...")
  

Shouldn't snow, shouldn't winter stop these things from sprawling so?

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It feels like people have been extolling the virtues of snow to me for years. It's so beautiful, they say. I think they've missed it. Snow isn't beautiful. Things you can see through the snow are.

There's a difference.

Cover everything in snow, and everything becomes the same white-washed idea. Cover it all in snow and there's no distinction, no nuance: only a blanket of indistinction making the world over in the same bland image. Snow covers us. Snow forces us in. We wait snow out and when it leaves, resume our lives. Imagine snow as a metaphor for anything oppressive, and you're starting to get the picture.

It isn't snow that's beautiful. It is what peeks through that is. Even the most ordinary object, refusing that yoke - that sameness - becomes something more and finds its beauty.

The beauty is in resistance: this is the lesson of snow.