It's Snow My Darling!

When the northern portion of the United States is blanketed in snow, Atlanta is usually just cold and rainy. I arrived in the South at age 8, when my Dad accepted a job that took us from a place in Massachusetts where the apples grow to suburb of Atlanta that was just starting to bloom. I wondered when we moved down here if my classmates had ever seen snow before, if we could wear shorts all year round, and why the ground had clay instead of soil. One of those questions was answered when "The Blizzard of '93" hit Georgia. Unaccustomed to dealing with frozen conditions, the saltless roads turned into sheets of ice. I was snowed in a friend's house for the weekend.

A Southern "blizzard" was the best way to make me feel at home. My friend Andrea and I spent all weekend going in and out of the house, defrosting and redressing, so we could repeat an endless cycle of trudging through snow, sledding, and making snow sculptures. Every year after that, my Auntie Ann would send me a saucer sled that I didn't get to use for it's intended purpose*. (*Note: It did, however, get turned it into a nest of blankets for tv watching, and I did slide down pinestraw-covered hills on it.) The years that snow landed on our little suburb, I was happy. I loved waking up to the white silence and feeling the crunch under my feet. Although the snow usually disappears within a day or so, it makes the year feel complete.

In my young adult years, I considered moving back to snow-laden New England very seriously. There are a few things that keep me rooted here, besides friends, family, and a great job. With all my years here in Atlanta, I have truly become a Southern girl; I don't think I could handle long periods of uninterrupted freezing cold temperatures. And while I love snowdays, I don't want my fond childhood memories to be dirtied by daily routines of trucking through snow. Until things change in my life, I will be happy here in Atlanta with my one annual snow fall. Snow, for me, is still special.