Snow Day Lessons

It snowed in Alabama last week.  (And it stuck for a little while!)  As many of you may know, this is a rare treat for us in the Deep South, and just the threat of snow causes milk and bread to fly off grocery store shelves faster than SEC football gear the week after a big game.  My parents' home is on an open part beautiful Lake Martin, which means that the snow that does come down generally just blows away.  This is why, whenever it snows and I'm home in Tallapoosa County, I go to my grandmother's house in Dadeville, Alabama.  She's in the last house on her street, and it's a big lot with plenty of trees that make for fun snow pictures.  She wasn't feeling well enough to play outside with me this year, so I just took pictures of the landscape.

View from her back porch.

Old equipment out behind her sheds.

Snow in trees looks magical to me.

Woods behind her house.

Snowy yard.

As the character Katherine says in Under the Tuscan Sun, "Never lose your childish enthusiasm, and things will come your way."  Too often we complain about the weather life throws at us instead of embracing it; I for one am guilty of this on a near-daily basis.  "It's too cold" and "It's too hot" are probably two of my most spoken phrases.  I seem to only like weather when it is convenient for me, snow on my days off work, rain when I'm in my pajamas at the house, and Alabama heat when I can be out on a boat on Lake Martin. 

My utter joy at the snow last week has made me rethink my love/hate relationship with Alabama's weather.  I had a professor in college who asked our class what we do in the morning after we wake up.  Everyone said mostly the same things, take a shower, eat breakfast, make coffee, etc.  I added to the list that I check the weather forecast online every morning.  He then asked, "Why don't you just look out the window?", and I told him that I liked to know if it was going to rain so I knew whether I needed my umbrella.  He suggested that I just take my chances and that if I got caught in the rain, to enjoy it the same way I would a sunny, 72 degree day.  I thought about what he said then and learned to enjoy rain and other yucky weather when it suited my life that day, but I never really accepted his comments.  I'm ready for that to change.  Though I can't promise to immediately embrace whatever weather the good earth sees fit to bring me, I'm at least going to try a little harder.  So even though this has been one of the coldest Alabama winters in my lifetime, I know it's going to be very hot in just a few shorts months, and I'm going to appreciate the bitter cold and scarves and coats while they last.  Bring it on.