Writing Prompt: What do Blizzards Remind you of?

Snow Storms Remind Me

by Magdalen Vaughn

An unexpected snow storm, because each one is somehow unexpected, makes me think of a time when I didn't know the childlike joy of snow, or when I couldn’t physically tolerate it. To know that there are times before…that change always comes... is something wise and humbling. 

18 years old I truly met the cold and the snow, in Chicago. What a time of feeling powerless and small in the wash of so much knowledge; so much unachievable potential. If I could go back, would I save myself from failing? From falling on my face so many times that, morphed and mangled, it became someone I couldn’t recognize? 

But before that, there were beautiful times too, when the snow fell fast and quiet. And chaotic times, when you couldn't smoke a bowl on the vents outside of my riot-proof dormitory from the 60s because the wind was so strong in a ‘polar-vortex’ blizzard. 

One night, maybe when I was staying in Chicago alone for Thanksgiving, the streets were shut down from the thickness of the snow curtain. All there was: a long white abandoned street and street lights. That night an older boy walked me home from a party in a basement. The ultimate frisbee team threw the parties in the dirty, humid basement. They were famous for kegstands and ‘dirty girlscouts,’ which were a mouthful of peppermint schnapps and some frat guy pouring chocolate syrup into your open mouth. Sometimes on your face. 

We talked all night, the older guy and I. It’s seared into my extremely patchy memory. Did he kiss me? I don’t remember that. I cannot remember, but I know it was everything I had been waiting for. The attention, and loving glances. I liked him so much… had crushed on him long since I saw him perform in an acapella concert on campus. But… he didn’t take me on a date like he promised, afterwards. I don't think he remembered to get my number that night, even. A long night of romantic promises meant only for the snowflakes and pristine silence of that night. 

Snow is different everywhere you go. It paints a place with a new kind of magic, crackling and infant. It blesses with a temporary purity. Snow in Paris; Snow in Chicago; Snow in Abilene; Snow in New York; Snow in Glasgow. Snow on new years eve, broken glass and blood at 1518 Superior. Snow on Christmas spent alone, spindly trees out of a 2nd story window where the redbird lives, at 1715 N. Talman. Snow that froze every pipe and forced us to fraternize with the neighbors on Belden avenue in Logan Square. 

Did snow really freeze both of Ms. Terry’s feet in Wisconsin? Or did she pass out drunk, outside? 

I wanna be snowed in with you, having taken a long quiet walk through the protective, haunting trees. We will be lazy from the fire, but always wanting to go back out for more. To see the sun through the haze of semi frozen clouds, like headlights in a dense fog, or an egg yolk underneath a curtain of smoke. 

I was recreated in the snow. Born again. Stripped of heat and confidence. Forged, eventually, but first, cleansed by ice. Perhaps that’s why it makes me feel like a child. I feel like anything is possible. It’s breathtaking and sacred.