Snow is blinding. It’s a canopy of whiteness that casts a pallor on the atmosphere. At first, it looks like every light in the house is on even in the dead of night. But then snow becomes spellbinding. It hypnotizes you, gradually obscuring everything around it until it all descends into an opaque, white-meets-gray haze.
For me, a Miami-raised Cuban-American who moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth area 27 years ago, snow holds no magic. I don’t look forward to it. I don’t build snowmen. I don’t relish watching it fall. I’m not a fan of winter in the least. In fact, I would rather endure a tooth extraction than one week of frigid winter.
Snow equals paralysis, a blanketing freeze that cripples everyday life as we know it. At least that is my experience. It didn’t snow one flake during my 28 years in Miami, so my snow-maggedon rude awakening wasn’t until I moved to DFW. Two events I remember clearly – the foot-plus onslaught of snow in 2010, and the snowy, icy mess that preceded the Super Bowl in 2011. But that was nothing in comparison to the state-wide arctic blast of February 2021. That one didn’t just give us lots of snow and plenty of ice, it also gifted us with single-digits and below-zero temperatures.
Never in my entire life had I endured the Alaskan Tundra-styled deep freeze of the 2021 winter storm. It brought the entire state of Texas, and Texas is a big state, to below-freezing temps. Power outages were everywhere. Clean drinking water became contaminated. State officials scrambled to answer for the wide swath of power losses in the midst of bone-numbing temperatures. Folks fled to shelters (dubbed warming centers), hotels, and hospitals with hypothermia. My husband Steve and I certainly weren’t spared. We lost power almost immediately and ended up about 35 miles from home to stay in a hotel close to Steve’s work. The roads were just too treacherous for him to make three round-trip commutes in three days.
I felt so helpless, so consumed by catastrophic thoughts. Will our house survive this disaster? Will our pipes freeze and burst no matter how many precautions we took to safeguard them? Will all of that blinding snow ever melt?
Winter leaves me nearly catatonic. I don’t function well in cold weather. It affects my lower back, it makes me shiver, it prevents my thoughts from flowing clearly. This seems to have gotten much worse since losing 42 pounds. Call me a skinny wimp, but my body has a really hard time taking the brutal attack of wind chills and temperatures that clock in at less than my age. I’m 55. There’s a reason I have spent my life in two southern states.
Yet we are all on a journey, right? So, let’s make this a learning opportunity. Steve and I have vowed to get our gas fireplace serviced and get a tutorial on how to use it. We were never fireplace people. That’s gonna change quick. We have also decided to purchase a generator once they become less than hot commodities. And hopefully, now that we have firsthand knowledge of the very destructive nature of a winter storm, we will be prepared to do a whole lot more than drip faucets, open sink cabinets, and cover outside spigots.
As for me, I’m not sure I can cleanse my psyche of winter’s horrors. Give me a 100-degree summer day and you won’t hear me complain. I actually love summer. It’s my favorite season. I’m also not sure I won’t ever again be a nervous wreck behind the wheel when there is snow or ice on the roads. However, in life knowledge is always power. There are no more surprises.
Snow is blinding. But I won’t let it blindside me.
Mario's Musings 