The Snow is Dancing

Snow is part of life here on the mountaintop, on these highest ridges in Maryland. I doubt most folks imagine snow when they think of our state. Perhaps they think of the beach, or maybe the city of Baltimore. Or the Ravens football team, or maybe the Chesapeake Bay. I doubt the fat flakes that are falling fast out there as I write are what people associate with the Free State, at least not those who are vague about this shadowy western edge. Now, those who have lived here, or visited, or skied — they know. It snows in Garrett County. A lot.

As a native of this mountain, I must say that the snow’s appearance lightens my soul. I have hoped for it to come. I have been ready. I know to some it is a nuisance and a burden, and it can be to me as well. But I can’t help loving it. I always have. When it flies from aloft and takes over the ground, I have to keep looking outside. I am compelled to check on its progress, and to witness the transformation as the world turns white.

The birds flick their wings, shaking the cold away, and they chatter to one another, maybe asking where the next full feeder might be. The trees are drawn in white, each crook and curve painted. Pine needles bend down a while, and then, when pressed to that final bend, flick back upward, sending a puff of flakes away. Creeks are banked with battened cotton, it seems, as the water’s surface grows solid, with a beveled edge brushed by the ripples that are too fast to freeze.

This county was first settled in part for its weather, as the cool summers were often a prescription of 19th century doctors, who believed them to be good for one’s lungs, and for well-being in general. I agree with them. The weather here is beautifully diverse, with four distinct seasons, mostly with all the trimmings — autumn, full of color and sweatshirt temps; winter bringing drifts and ice; spring…. not so great, I admit. Cold, rainy, often snowy — and not the good snow, but the wet, sloppy stuff; and then summer, with brilliant blue skies, warm days, and cool nights. So yes, four parts of the year, mostly tolerable, minus spring’s old cold self. We’re lucky to have it all, and I hope it keeps happening, even as the world’s weather continues to change.

I love how we Garrett Countians have our own vocabulary about snow (a skiff, a butt-dragger), our own ways of handling drifts, our own expertise in plowing and road maintenance — all of it. We have to, because on top of our little pinnacle, the winter finds a place to land. There is no place else nearby where the old guy can really settle in for long. We are just high enough that he can stop and stay. So we bundle up, drag out the wool socks, brush off our porches and our cars, fire up snowblowers and generators, grab the firewood we stacked in September, and adjust. We get on with our lives, delayed only slightly by the winter’s visit. We get on because we just do, and always have.

(Slight digression — Isn’t it funny how we say, “It’s snowing.” What do we mean by “it”? What’s snowing? The sky? The world? Learning how to speak English has to be so terribly frustrating because of weird little phrases like that.)

We know snow and its different presentations. On a bitter morning, we know it will simply blow off the windshield with nary a flake left, because when the mercury is bottoming out, the snow is light like feathers. But if the sun has shone at all the day before, beware of reconstituted melt, i.e., ice, that must be scraped off. Don’t be pouring water on your windshield when it’s below zero… always a disaster. I remember being driven to high school by my brother Don, then 20-something, who seemed to make it a contest with himself to find out just how small a hole in the windshield ice he could see through to get us on our way. He liked to go with quarter-sized…while laughing. Geesh.

The sight of snow, especially when the mercury is only just showing, is lovely. It snakes across the roads, serpentine, and flows together up and over, sculpting itself into the most lovely drifts — like a surf of snow, curled at the edge, with wisps of white sifting off the crests. Paths are cut by tires and plows, and the pushed-up piles along the road often make me think of making Christmas cookies with my mom, rolling pecan puffs in powdered sugar. The puff, just out from the oven, melts the sugar slightly, which creates the soft sugar coating. Another roll in the sugar, and the cookie is properly covered in white, looking Christmasy and perfect. Snow that is still clean, piled in soft rows along the highway, makes me think of that. Always.

When the rest of the state gets a dusting, there is excitement, with news stories and predictions and bread-and-milk buyouts. Meanwhile, we’ve often already had more snow than the dear flat-landers will get all year. But that’s all right. We will ride it out, as we always do, and they won’t even know. I think we prefer it that way. We are snug in our houses, warmed by fires, equipped with proper boots and shovels and firewood. We are one with that bleak world out there, cold and beautiful, harsh and lovely. The hardiest Marylanders? Oh, that’s us. Hands down.