There's Snow Place Like Home





After I was home from my half-day at work on Christmas Eve, and after hot sandwiches and soup, and after suiting up into my neglected winter coat, hat, and gloves, and suiting Rhiannon up in her purple coat, pink, tassled hat, pink "mitties", and knee-high, tassled snowboots, we went outside to frolic in the snow.


We are currently wintering at my in-laws' house, just north of Chicago, and there are three feet of snow on the ground, about half of it fresh from the past week. Rhiannon and I both miss it, and miss it with feeling, and snow is something one sees on TV in Phoenix -- it's two hours' drive by car to see it in person in Arizona from where we live. So the first thing Rhiannon does (as she has always done with the first snow she sees for the year) is sit down in the middle of the back yard with a plastic ladle from the kitchen and eat. She eats snow for minutes, making her mouth and nose pink. She loves it. No sugar. No flavor. Just crunchy, white snow. She offers me some, and I take a taste. It tastes like I remember it. Clean and cold. And it brings into focus the fact that I am Outside which is a place I need to be (and R, too) more often than I have been this past year. For me, the snow tastes like mana. For Rhiannon, I think it is more literal for her. So we sit and eat until Rhiannon wants to make snowmen.


I say "snowmen" (in the plural) because she wants to make a gigantic one that can be seen from space, but she also wants to make a tiny one as we have a box of accoutrements suitable for a foot-tall snowman: tiny, black felt hat, tiny pipe, tiny carrot nose, tiny, black eyes, tiny, red scarf. We find tiny sticks for arms. Rhiannon and I make three snowballs and stack them atop each other on the birdbath that has frozen over. We dress the snowman. I have to create an armature to keep the snowballs from falling over, and then he is done. When we see him from the window later, he is listing, as if having dipped too frequently into the Christmas cheer. And on Chritmas morning, he is completely toppled over; perhaps the squirrels rolled him for his nuts.


The other snowman Rhiannon and I build ends up not looking like a snowman at all, but like a six-and-a-half-foot tall Nordic fertility symbol comprised of about ten snowballs of decreasing diameter. The whole erection must weigh about one hundred pounds, and Rhiannon insisted on me photographing her kissing this totem pole; it is a picture you'll not be seeing here.


And after all of this, Rhiannon has me give her a push on the swing, and has me watch her as she slides down the snow-covered slide, and then we pitch snowballs at each other until Rhiannon ducks at exactly the wrong time and gets a faceful of powder. Tears follow but quickly stop as I let her dump handfuls of snow over my head and down my shirt. Satisfied and laughing, we head inside. As we walk to the backdoor, Rhiannon tells me of her immediate plans:


"Dad!"


"Yes, Rhiannon?"


"I'm going to have hot chocolate!"


"Sure!"


"And you're going to have a hot cup-o'-joe!"


[pause]


"That means 'coffee', dad!"


"Yes, Rhiannon." I laugh. "Yes it does."


And once inside, we make good on her plans, and then go upstairs to play.


Rhiannon. Cozily Cute.


Andrew (Papa)