It snowed the first #snow of the season in #Pittsburgh in the wee hours of the morning on Tuesday. I awoke to bright sunshine and about two inches of snow — just the way that #Winter should start. Everyone on my Facebook feed was either bitching about the snow (because you know, they hate beauty and nature and life) or posting about how lovely it was while posting tons of sparkly white photos.
This all reminded me of the first snow of the season in Pittsburgh the first year that we lived here. It was late November 2005 and we had only moved to Pittsburgh in mid-July. We were on a train headed towards #Philadelphia; en route to meet up with more of The Man’s family in Trenton, NJ for Thanksgiving. It had started to snow lightly before we left the city, but as we went farther East, the snow began to come down in rushes with huge flakes. It was so incredibly beautiful. I had never seen snow like that before.
You see, I am from #Oklahoma, where we do not have snow (well, ever since we moved in 2005 OK has been getting snow — go figure). We get lots of ice and a few flurries, but never enough snow to actually build snowmen or have snowball fights or build igloos out of snow bricks. It just gets cold, windy, and icy. It fucking sucks. “Snow days” from school were actually “ice days” and boring since you could not spend all day outside having fun in the snow. I hated living where there was no snow.
I remember the Winter I was five years old. The only year there was any significant snowfall in Oklahoma City. I did not have to go to kindergarten and my mum called into work since she would have had to find a sitter for me and shovel the car out. We spent the entire day between playing outside in the snow and drinking hot cocoa and slurping on Cup of Soup. Since this was Oklahoma, we did not have proper snow gear. My mum was quick with her improvisational skills that day; she used an empty pizza box from the night before as a sled. I sat in the opened box and she pulled me around by holding onto the lid. That was such a fun day. I will never forget that day.
We have lived in Pittsburgh for eight years now and are approaching our eighth Winter here. I still get nostalgic about that snow day from when I was five every time the first snow falls here in da ‘burgh. That little child still lives inside of me and loves this time of year. I do not think I will ever be one of those people bitching about snow on social media.
Snowflakes Twinkling crystals of visible silence Frozen geometry falling on tongues Icy diamonds in the sunshine Smiles sliding on sleds