Winter Wonderland
The first time I saw snow I was 26 years old and living 12,000 miles from the only tropical home I had ever known. It had been a strange winter in St. Louis, with two terrible ice storms that took down power lines and left hundreds of homes without electricity. The first ice storm left my car caked in inches of ice and then covered in snow, and I spent a full hour beating at the frozen mass with a scraper and pulling chunks of ice off with my bare hands. It was much too cold for a Bangkokian who hadn't quite mastered the art of dressing for winter. I have to admit, though, that the city looked magical covered in ice. When the sun finally came up it reflected off of the crystals that clung to roads and trees and buildings, as if Tinkerbell had just flown by. (Not long after I learned the hazards of driving and walking on the ice, and the pain of cold mornings spent waiting for the car to heat up.)
The first snowfall of the winter happened in the middle of the night, while I was baby-sitting my favorite pair of twins in their West County home. I remember looking out the window that night and seeing the deck covered in a layer of white, as more snow continued to fall gently. I ran outside onto the lawn barefoot for my first taste of snow. The flakes clung to my hair and lashes, and I could not remember ever being part of anything more beautiful. My Other Half, a Missouri native, laughed as I looked up into the sky in awe.
Driving home was a completely different sort of magic, with snowflakes rushing at the windshield and all the headlights of the cars on the roads glowed eerily. Everything was softer somehow, and I remember calling my mother on the other side of the planet to scream to her, "It's snowing!" At around midnight we pulled over into the parking lot of Schnuck's, which was covered in a perfect blanket of white, so I could get out of the car and stand in the snow as it continued to fall. Up until that point my time in St. Louis had been difficult. I was homesick and wanted nothing more than to return to Bangkok, where I didn't have to learn to drive on the other side of the street and where I could get spicy somtam on the side of the road. The snow took a little of that hurt away.
That winter I threw snowballs and made snow angels, almost crashed the car getting off the highway in a snow storm, bought myself the perfect pair of boots for adventuring in the snow and fell madly in love with the cold, white stuff that fell from the sky. I learned to look at the flakes that fell onto the car windows, finally understanding that snowflakes aren't the size of golf balls but teeny-tiny crystals that were utterly unique and incredibly beautiful. I also learned that after a few days, the pretty white stuff turns into yucky gray slush, at least until the next time it snows.
I'm back in Bangkok now and as we get closer to the holidays, what I miss about St. Louis is the anticipation of snow. I miss the sound snow makes when it falls, so different from the downpours of Bangkok, but comforting in its own way. I think what I miss most of all is waking up early one morning, when the sun is bright and warm, and every inch of the ground and every car parked is covered in inches of untouched snow, before real life takes over and the snow goes away.