The snow on May 1st, 2013
The snow on May 1st, 2013 came down like rain, the weather just cold enough at 31 degrees to barely form flakes.
I walked out of my final final of my freshman year to it. It was about dark by then, around 7 o’clock. It was a Spanish final, I remember that. I didn’t do well, I remember that, too. But I was done with my first year of college, and summer awaited, and that’s what I focused on as I stepped into the cold.
The plan was to be lifeguard and work at a small regional online-only news outlet, the PV Post. In the weeks leading up to finals week, I dreamed of going back home to Kansas City and replacing the Nebraska cold with some Kansas rays on the lifeguard stand. I couldn’t wait to work in the muggy mornings and sweaty evenings on feature stories about the community. The summer I checked just about box you can for a community paper job. Covered an ice cream truck that neighbors called too loud, the planting of a new community garden.
So of course, in dreaming of warm, it was snow I walked out to after my final final.
But it was OK, in one way, because I used to think the University of Nebraska-Lincoln looked best in the snow. It seemed made for it. The grassy parts of campus didn’t quite pop like other campuses I’d been to. UNL felt like it was missing something in the summers and springs. It was pretty in the fall, the leaves lining the sidewalks but then in the winter, ah-ha, there, there was the missing piece all along, a blanket of fresh snow. It showed up first November and stayed for most of the school year. It seemed to connect campus. The town looked more comfortable, like it finally found the right pair of shoes.
But it turns out, it isn’t just UNL that looks best in the snow. I believe everything looks better in the snow. A few years ago, a friend came and visited and we went to breakfast at 11 a.m. at this place not far. By the time we’d drank our coffee and eaten our eggs, we drove back home and Omaha had accrued what appeared to be two inches of wet, soppy snow. I drove slow and my wife took pictures of the trees hanging over the road. And it looked better, Omaha, in snow.
Everything always does.
As a child, I used to look out our big front room window to see if it was raining. You always have to find something to stare at for a few seconds to find out if its raining. For me it was the street lamp at the end of the cul-de-sac. Stare at the light just right, and there, you can see the pellets of rain.
I’m looking out of my window right now, and I don’t need to focus on a street lamp or our garage or our large tree. I can see the April 16th snow clearly, the big fat flakes piling on our fence and our yard. If I threw my dog in it, it’d cover his tiny legs. It’s that deep, that fresh.
And again, it’s brought comfort, no matter the annoyance of it being a spring day.
There are many decisions to make in a day, especially now that most of us are home. What to decide to start worrying about, what to decide to not worry about anymore or at least for a while, what to fill our time with, when to shower, when to change, how to work out if we’re going to work out, what is an OK amount of pasta to eat, whether or not to make another pot of coffee, if we’ll make it out of this and if our family is OK, I mean really OK.
The snow on April 16th made a decision for us today. No, we’re not taking the dog on a walk after work. No, we’re not mowing anymore. No, let’s stay in instead of takeout dinner. Yes, maybe, let’s just stop and look at it for a few moments. Maybe take a picture.
That May 1st snow reminded me that the next day, when I left for the summer, that Nebraska would still be there, making decisions with or without me.
It’s done it again on this day, April 16. The world turns, life moves on, whether we’re inside or out, at work or not. I don’t know what the next few weeks look like and I don’t have a lot of answers. We feel like we have to have so many answers these days.
But there’s a brief, brief comfort at 4:49 p.m. on this Thursday, April 16, knowing the snow has returned and there’s nothing we can do about it. And that it will stay for awhile to remind us when it was here last, just a few months ago when things seemed a little more OK, and remind us of the times we cut through it as children in sleds or packed them together to throw at each other.
The snow has decided to impose itself, and that’s OK, because there’s nothing we can do other than watch as it quietly piles up. And as the limbs sway and crack with the weight of each flake, and as downpour continues after the sunset, it brings a small bit of quiet peace, blankets of snow putting our minds to bed, even only for a few moments.
Best Thing I Read This Week:
You probably had to memorize this Robert Frost poem in school. I did in 7th grade for Mr. Caves. But did we really understand what we were saying? The Most Misread Poem in America, the Paris Review.