I adore this time of year. Starting in September, my autumn mood switches into overdrive. I wear sweaters and fleece shirts with fall and winter themes embroidered on them. I dress the dog in holiday sweaters and hoodies. I add cinnamon to everything and buy holiday issues of Martha Stewart Living. I find excuses to visit the holiday-themed aisles of every store I go into, including Rite-Aide. World Market becomes my Disneyland!
Now Thanksgiving Day is upon us, and I’ve been watching the weather reports. Each time I see the heavy snows falling in other areas of the country, I say a heartfelt prayer of thanks to God for giving me the wisdom to move to the Central Coast and stay put.
I’ll admit that I have this Currier-and-Ives fantasy about autumn and winter. You’d think I would know better because it’s nothing like those romanticized scenes. I was raised in Spokane, Wash., where people don’t tan–they rust. Every winter I rode the Polar Vortex to school, digging through and climbing over snow drifts to catch the city bus. Days were so short that I went to school in the dark and came home in the dark.
My schoolroom smelled of wet boots, soggy coats, and Vicks cough drops. One day, the bus didn’t come after school because of a blizzard. I must have looked like the little match girl as I made my sorry way back to the school’s convent in the bleakness. The nuns were stunned to see a first-grader on their doorstep. They gave me warm milk and Dutch windmill cookies and called my frantic mother.
Her mother, my Grandma, wisely stopped her from driving through the storm to fetch me home, sending my Uncle Carroll instead. He was intrepid and brave, that is, until he arrived at the convent. Uncle Carroll, a Lutheran, wasn’t used to being around nuns and kept calling them “Ma’am, uh, I mean Missus, uh I mean, um, Your Holiness.” But they were very sweet and offered him a cup of coffee and Dutch windmill cookies, which he respectfully and gratefully accepted before driving me home.
Mom immediately hugged us both, gave her brother more coffee, and plopped me into a hot bath. I remember those baths after coming in from the snow. My skin would sizzle as I inched my way into the tub, and then settle into that aaahhh moment of blissful, steamy warmth. This was followed by a vigorous terrycloth rubdown, a chest rub of Vicks VapoRub, a cup of cocoa, and bed.
When I was 9, we moved to Phoenix, Ariz., and snow became a distant memory until I was in high school. By then, my Currier-and-Ives fantasy had fully developed, and I couldn’t wait to go with the church teen club to the Snow Bowl in Flagstaff for a skiing trip. I’d never skied before and was so excited that I forgot an important detail—use the bathroom before you bundle up and strap on all that gear. We had a very cute ski instructor named Lars, and as I eagerly held his hand and slid down the beginner’s slope, I realized my omission was quickly about to become an emission. What to do?
There were plenty of trees and shrubberies nearby, all coated with heavy snow, which made for a good blind. So I gingerly made my way behind them with a friend to keep watch. This was my second mistake. The laws of physics are that if something frozen comes into contact with a very warm liquid, it thaws. My relief was short-lived as the snow around my skis melted and I slid forward, down onto the beginner’s slope, bare-bottomed to the world and Lars, with a thin, golden line trailing behind me mapping my trajectory.
You’d think I would have learned, but no. The following year I went again because of Greg, my handsome new boyfriend, who asked me. No skiing for me this time. I was going to ride the ski lift and canoodle with Greg!
I’d never ridden a ski lift before and getting on is tricky. You have to slide your butt into the seat just as it swings around and under you. Miss it even by a few inches and you could suffer the fate I did. The sled-rung of the chair caught the hem of my sweater and, as the chair continued to rise, it carried me with it. My sweater slid up around my neck, pulling up my bra, and leaving me bare-breasted to the world and Greg. Needless to say, I was very popular after that.
That was the last time I saw snow until Easter 1994. Yes, I said Easter. I was then living in Pasadena while completing my graduate studies at USC. Mom was visiting, packed and ready for beach weather, when a sudden cold snap dumped snow on the San Gabriel Mountains, only blocks from my house in the foothills. My mother, who spent a third of her life in Spokane, hates snow with a passion!
Mom huddled in the car over a cup of coffee as we drove to meet up with family for the day. I pointed to the foothills, glistening with new snow in the sunlight, and said, “Look, Mom! Here it is, Easter morning, and there’s snow on the hillside, just like a scene by Currier and Ives!”
She slowly looked out the window, stared for a long moment, then turned back to her coffee and softly uttered, “Oh, s–t!”
It’s been 20 years since that day, and I’m ready to brave the snow once more, this time for my grandson. He’s never seen snow and really wants to, so I’m going to find some for him. I think I’ll wait until closer to Christmas to take him where there’s snowfall. Not because of my Currier-and-Ives fantasy, nor because it’s a cool holiday thing to do. No, I’m awaiting a visitor who will be spending the holidays with us. I can hardly wait for Mom to arrive! Snow s–t!
Ariel Waterman still loves Dutch windmill cookies. Send her some, along with cocoa mix and Vicks VapoRub, via her editor at rmiller@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Nov 13-20, 2014.