Hi, all!
Here's the link to my newest column at The Greenville News. Hope you enjoy!
Also: The Greenville News is asking folks to tag them on Twitter (@GreenvilleNews) and Facebook and Instagram with your own memories and photos of The Big Snow of 1988.
Showing posts with label snow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label snow. Show all posts
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Snow Day!
It finally snowed! All hail the snow!
And a good time was had by all.
Wherever you are, I hope you're safe, warm and happy. And if you can, get outside and play!
P.S. Lest you think we forgot her, Baby Willa was warm, safe, and asleep inside. We'll get her out today.
And a good time was had by all.
Wherever you are, I hope you're safe, warm and happy. And if you can, get outside and play!
P.S. Lest you think we forgot her, Baby Willa was warm, safe, and asleep inside. We'll get her out today.
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Feile Samhna - Happy Halloween!
In honor of that day of the year when the door between this world and the next creeeaaaks open, I’m sharing a post I wrote on this day way back in 2008. Forgive the references to snow. It used to snow in my mountains. Also, I used the word "freaking." I was in my 20s and didn't have kids.
Happy Hallowe’en and Feile Samhna to you all!
Without further ado, a repost from my past:
Snow in October, Hallowe’en in My Head
On Tuesday morning, it snowed in Brevard. And not just a few, miserly flakes: the stuff came down–so thick it hid the mountains from view, and made my drive to work feel like inching through a blizzard. But, because it is the South and only October, it melted by 9 a.m.
I am a fool for snow. If it had stuck around long enough, I would’ve tromped my students outside to stand in it, and somehow managed to make the weather relate to writing… just so I could get my time in before it melted. I come by this snowmadness honestly: When I was growing up in South Carolina, my parents–especially my Dad–made snow days more magical than Christmas. (And Christmas was pretty freaking magical in my house.)
The year of the Big Snow, something everyone who grew up in the ’80s in Greenville, S.C. still talks about, it snowed well over a foot, and school was out for nearly two weeks. My father took buckets of water and washed down our driveway and road, so it’d be perfectly slick for sledding. He and his friends tied our sleds with old ski ropes to the back of someone’s Waggoneer, and they tugged us around our neighborhood for hours, the moms in the way back with the hatch open, giggling and hanging on. We sledded for hours down the hill near a local Baptist church, a gang of StayPuff marshmellow kids in our snowskiing gear (bibs, jackets, gloves, boots, hats)–which the nearest house with the nearest mom would dump into her dryer, filling us with hot chocolate before sending us out again.
My neighbors, formerly of the coast, pulled out their surfboards and removed the fins, and we surfed down the hill in front of my house. My black lab, Magic, raced circles around the house in a blur of white. Each morning, my sister and I woke up, raced to our parents’ bedroom where they had the radio on by their bed, to wait anxiously to hear whether My 102.5 would announce that school was cancelled again in Greenville County. My God, it was magic.
Suffice to say, we cannot afford this. And so, we flee after a time… and I think that’s what we’ll do tonight. But first, we’ll buy a couple of bags of candy from the dollar store–if they’ve any left–and pass it out to the first little ghouls, the cutest ones of the entire night, and then we’ll walk downtown to eat, maybe to a movie. We’ll leave Scout, our dog, to guard the dark house.
For the Scottish poet Rabbie Burns’s famous poem about Hallowe’en, click here.
For an interesting article on the Celtic origins of Hallwe’en, click here.
Happy Hallowe’en and Feile Samhna to you all!
Without further ado, a repost from my past:
Snow in October, Hallowe’en in My Head
On Tuesday morning, it snowed in Brevard. And not just a few, miserly flakes: the stuff came down–so thick it hid the mountains from view, and made my drive to work feel like inching through a blizzard. But, because it is the South and only October, it melted by 9 a.m.
I am a fool for snow. If it had stuck around long enough, I would’ve tromped my students outside to stand in it, and somehow managed to make the weather relate to writing… just so I could get my time in before it melted. I come by this snowmadness honestly: When I was growing up in South Carolina, my parents–especially my Dad–made snow days more magical than Christmas. (And Christmas was pretty freaking magical in my house.)
The year of the Big Snow, something everyone who grew up in the ’80s in Greenville, S.C. still talks about, it snowed well over a foot, and school was out for nearly two weeks. My father took buckets of water and washed down our driveway and road, so it’d be perfectly slick for sledding. He and his friends tied our sleds with old ski ropes to the back of someone’s Waggoneer, and they tugged us around our neighborhood for hours, the moms in the way back with the hatch open, giggling and hanging on. We sledded for hours down the hill near a local Baptist church, a gang of StayPuff marshmellow kids in our snowskiing gear (bibs, jackets, gloves, boots, hats)–which the nearest house with the nearest mom would dump into her dryer, filling us with hot chocolate before sending us out again.
My neighbors, formerly of the coast, pulled out their surfboards and removed the fins, and we surfed down the hill in front of my house. My black lab, Magic, raced circles around the house in a blur of white. Each morning, my sister and I woke up, raced to our parents’ bedroom where they had the radio on by their bed, to wait anxiously to hear whether My 102.5 would announce that school was cancelled again in Greenville County. My God, it was magic.
It doesn’t snow much any more. And even though I’ve moved to the mountains of Western North Carolina, a much higher elevation than my hometown, I’ve only seen a few inches each year–mostly ice–that melts in a day, leaves me sad and a little slushy. I long for those preternatural sunrises, pressing my face to my cold bedroom window and praying that my world would still be white. I miss the igloo my Dad and his friends built us, the real fires in the fireplaces, the way my neighborhood became a festival of friends for two straight weeks, the fun never-ending.
But now, there’s Hallowe’en in my head. Feile Samhna to all! Happiest of All Souls’ Days, All Hallow’s Eves, the night just before Samhain, the night when the door supposedly creaks open between this world and the next, and the spirits roam. No matter what anyone says, or how much we’ve ‘roided Hallowe’en up with commercialism, it is a preternatural night: a night our ancestors (just about all of them, no matter what your DNA looks like) recognized as different. If you stand outside in the chilly dark tonight, away from the squealing kids and orange lights and ringing doorbells, you might feel it brush your face, give you a little shiver. If you do, I say you’re lucky. Hallowe’en has many faces, many traditions, many legends associated with it… and not all are scary.
My husband and I have been debating for a week about what to do with ourselves tonight. Our neighborhood, which is not even a half mile from downtown, will become swamped with trick-or-treating children at about 6 p.m., and will not cease until after 10 p.m. They are mini-vanned in from all corners of the county… and sometimes the street up from us is blocked off by police cars so the kids can wander freely. It’s not anything out of the ordinary for folks in our neighborhood to spend $400 on candy each year.
But now, there’s Hallowe’en in my head. Feile Samhna to all! Happiest of All Souls’ Days, All Hallow’s Eves, the night just before Samhain, the night when the door supposedly creaks open between this world and the next, and the spirits roam. No matter what anyone says, or how much we’ve ‘roided Hallowe’en up with commercialism, it is a preternatural night: a night our ancestors (just about all of them, no matter what your DNA looks like) recognized as different. If you stand outside in the chilly dark tonight, away from the squealing kids and orange lights and ringing doorbells, you might feel it brush your face, give you a little shiver. If you do, I say you’re lucky. Hallowe’en has many faces, many traditions, many legends associated with it… and not all are scary.
Suffice to say, we cannot afford this. And so, we flee after a time… and I think that’s what we’ll do tonight. But first, we’ll buy a couple of bags of candy from the dollar store–if they’ve any left–and pass it out to the first little ghouls, the cutest ones of the entire night, and then we’ll walk downtown to eat, maybe to a movie. We’ll leave Scout, our dog, to guard the dark house.
For the Scottish poet Rabbie Burns’s famous poem about Hallowe’en, click here.
For an interesting article on the Celtic origins of Hallwe’en, click here.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Snow in October, Hallowe'en in My Head
* Full disclosure:
This a re-post from Halloween 2008. I liked it, and thought I'd share it again. A few things have changed since then: I have a 3 year-old, and we'll definitely be joining all the little monsters in town Trick-or-Treating tonight.
Also interesting: though my town didn't see snow, it snowed several inches not too many miles away last night, and many towns in Western North Carolina have been under winter storm warnings due to the after-effects of Hurricane Sandy. (Stay safe, everyone!)
* *
On Tuesday morning, it snowed in Brevard. And
not just a few, miserly flakes: the stuff came down--so thick it hid the
mountains from view, and made my drive to work feel like inching through a
blizzard. But, because it is the South and only October, it melted by 9 a.m.
I am a fool for snow. If it had stuck around long enough, I would've tromped my students outside to stand in it, and somehow managed to make the weather relate to writing... just so I could get my time in before it melted. I come by this snowmadness honestly: When I was growing up in South Carolina, my parents--especially my Dad--made snow days more magical than Christmas. (And Christmas was pretty freaking magical in my house.)
The year of the Big Snow, something everyone who grew up in the '80s in Greenville, S.C. still talks about, it snowed well over a foot, and school was out for nearly two weeks. My father took buckets of water and washed down our driveway and road, so it'd be perfectly slick for sledding. He and his friends tied our sleds with old ski ropes to the back of someone's Waggoneer, and they tugged us around our neighborhood for hours, the moms in the way back with the hatch open, giggling and hanging on. We sledded for hours down the hill near a local Baptist church, a gang of StayPuff marshmellow kids in our snowskiing gear (bibs, jackets, gloves, boots, hats)--which the nearest house with the nearest mom would dump into her dryer, filling us with hot chocolate before sending us out again.
My neighbors, formerly of the coast, pulled out their surfboards and removed the fins, and we surfed down the hill in front of my house. My black lab, Magic, raced circles around the house in a blur of white. Each morning, my sister and I woke up, raced to our parents' bedroom where they had the radio on by their bed, to wait anxiously to hear whether My 102.5 would announce that school was cancelled again in Greenville County. My God, it was magic.
It doesn't snow much any more. And even though I've moved to the mountains of Western North Carolina, a much higher elevation than my hometown, I've only seen a few inches each year--mostly ice--that melts in a day, leaves me sad and a little slushy. I long for those preternatural sunrises, pressing my face to my cold bedroom window and praying that my world would still be white. I miss the igloo my Dad and his friends built us, the real fires in the fireplaces, the way my neighborhood became a festival of friends for two straight weeks, the fun neverending.
I am a fool for snow. If it had stuck around long enough, I would've tromped my students outside to stand in it, and somehow managed to make the weather relate to writing... just so I could get my time in before it melted. I come by this snowmadness honestly: When I was growing up in South Carolina, my parents--especially my Dad--made snow days more magical than Christmas. (And Christmas was pretty freaking magical in my house.)
The year of the Big Snow, something everyone who grew up in the '80s in Greenville, S.C. still talks about, it snowed well over a foot, and school was out for nearly two weeks. My father took buckets of water and washed down our driveway and road, so it'd be perfectly slick for sledding. He and his friends tied our sleds with old ski ropes to the back of someone's Waggoneer, and they tugged us around our neighborhood for hours, the moms in the way back with the hatch open, giggling and hanging on. We sledded for hours down the hill near a local Baptist church, a gang of StayPuff marshmellow kids in our snowskiing gear (bibs, jackets, gloves, boots, hats)--which the nearest house with the nearest mom would dump into her dryer, filling us with hot chocolate before sending us out again.
My neighbors, formerly of the coast, pulled out their surfboards and removed the fins, and we surfed down the hill in front of my house. My black lab, Magic, raced circles around the house in a blur of white. Each morning, my sister and I woke up, raced to our parents' bedroom where they had the radio on by their bed, to wait anxiously to hear whether My 102.5 would announce that school was cancelled again in Greenville County. My God, it was magic.
It doesn't snow much any more. And even though I've moved to the mountains of Western North Carolina, a much higher elevation than my hometown, I've only seen a few inches each year--mostly ice--that melts in a day, leaves me sad and a little slushy. I long for those preternatural sunrises, pressing my face to my cold bedroom window and praying that my world would still be white. I miss the igloo my Dad and his friends built us, the real fires in the fireplaces, the way my neighborhood became a festival of friends for two straight weeks, the fun neverending.
But now, there's Hallowe'en in my head. Feile Samhna to all! Happiest of All Souls' Days, All Hallow's Eves, the night just before Samhain, the night when the door supposedly creaks open between this world and the next, and the spirits roam. No matter what anyone says, or how much we've 'roided Hallowe'en up with commercialism, it is a preternatural night: a night our ancestors (just about all of them, no matter what your DNA looks like) recognized as different. If you stand outside in the chilly dark tonight, away from the squealing kids and orange lights and ringing doorbells, you might feel it brush your face, give you a little shiver. If you do, I say you're lucky. Hallowe'en has many faces, many traditions, many legends associated with it... and not all are scary.
My husband and I have been debating for a week about what to do with ourselves tonight. Our neighborhood, which is not even a half mile from downtown, will become swamped with trick-or-treating children at about 6 p.m., and will not cease until after 10 p.m. They are mini-vanned in from all corners of the county... and sometimes the street up from us is blocked off by police cars so the kids can wander freely. It's not anything out of the ordinary for folks in our neighborhood to spend $400 on candy each year.
Suffice to say, we cannot afford this. And so, we flee after a time... and I think that's what we'll do tonight. But first, we'll buy a couple of bags of candy from the dollar store--if they've any left--and pass it out to the first little ghouls, the cutest ones of the entire night, and then we'll walk downtown to eat, maybe to a movie. We'll leave Scout, our dog, to guard the dark house.
For the Scottish poet Rabbie Burns's famous poem about Hallowe'en, check out: http://www.djmcadam.com/halloween.htm
For an interesting article on the Celtic origins of Hallwe'en, go to: http://www.newacropolisuk.org/ShowArticle.php?artid=6
Monday, January 16, 2012
Back in the Saddle
First residency at the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in Writing program completed: Check.
Back home and procrastinating like the champion pro-cras-ti-NAY-TOR that I am: Check check.
It's 3:06 in the afternoon, and I'm still wearing my pajamas. Granted, they're whimsical, black and white, Fair Isle-patterned, Victoria Secret long underwear pajamas, but it's after 8 a.m., and I'm still wearin' 'em. The gas logs are blazing, my black lab is snoring on her Christmas-present new dog bed, and my toddler is napping. Finally.
It's not that I've been lazing about, as my husband likes to say, "eating Bon Bons." (What ARE Bon Bons, by the way? They sound like something French and dirty.) So far today, I've fed my dog and child, helped my husband find his wallet, made up a grading calendar and graded assignments for an online writing class I'm teaching, checked both of my work email accounts, washed several loads of laundry, finished a novel assigned by my faculty advisor at Vermont College, and prepped and started a big, fat crockpot of turkey chili for tonight's supper. Yet, I'm still in my pajamas. If Publisher's Clearing House arrives at the door--like I'm sure they will since I've been filling out those daggum envelopes for years--I will be That Woman. You know, the one in her housecoat with the greasy hair, covering her face and shouting, "Oh, law, I can't believe I'm on T.V. like this!" Of course, I'll be in my cute Fair Isle pajamas.
This is all to say that in spite of each of the aforementioned tasks being important, I'm still procrastinating. Here's why:
I arrived home from Montpelier, Vermont and VCFA on Sunday, January 8, exhausted from travel and desperately happy to see my family. At the airport in Greenville, South Carolina, where I last landed, my two year-old towhead of a daughter broke from her father and sprinted through a crowd of people heading toward baggage claim, and leapt into my arms. My God--what a life! Two days after returning home, two of our best friends in the world and their twin 16 month-olds arrived at our tiny house in the mountains, and we had a wonderful few days together, eating and drinking and chasing kiddos and laughing with more friends. Then, my parents came to visit for the day before leaving on one of their many jaunts about the globe (they've been burning up the mountain highway to our house for, oh, the past 2 1/2 years). Then my husband and I poohed out a bit over the weekend. Sure, we went grocery shopping and cleaned up and played with our daughter and hiked with friends and I began cleaning my Jabba the Hut of a desk, but we poohed out.
Which brings us to today. I gave myself last week, as a gift, to regroup after the residency and to enjoy time with friends. But now it's time for the heavy lifting. For the work on the many, many pages of creative and critical writing I'm to mail to my advisor in three weeks. But I find myself, home again, willing to do anything else that needs doing in my house, other than write. Because writing is hard. And I'm a big, stinkin' mess of procrastination. The Pro-Crass-ti-nay-TOR: able to avoid the-thing-she-loves-doing-most in a single bound. More on this at a later date. (See: I'm sneaky.)
The residency itself was a good one, my first with Vermont College. The campus was snow-covered and lovely, the lectures for the most part interesting and helpful--some downright inspiring. The new friends, especially, a joy. Writers are a ridiculous, wonderful, ego-centric, odd, irreverent bunch, and it's always nice to be in the company of my people. Even the dorm room I stayed in--though some may disagree--wasn't so bad. Though I did feel, upon entering, a swift urge to paper the walls with Matthew McConaughey posters and blast the Dave Matthews Band. And order pizza at 3 a.m. And wear flip-flops. And go to breakfast wearing the same clothes I'd worn the night before. But I digress.
See, the dorm:
Not so bad, right? Bigger than my freshman year dorm room at Clemson. (On a side note, I slept like a rock in Vermont, woke each day bright-eyed at 6:30 a.m. Wierd.)
And the campus, small and lovely:
And Montpelier, the state capitol, only a ten minute's walk down the hill from the College. I spent quite a bit of time there with new friends and alone, dining and shopping and wandering:
across foot bridges...
It was heaven, that time in the woods. Even though I slipped on the ice and thought I fractured my elbow. But I digress.
So now I'm home, trying like all heck to organize my life, my work, my writing, my schooling, my family into one neat, color-coordinated schedule. I'm trying to figure out how I can do it all, and do it well.
I may give myself one more week....
Back home and procrastinating like the champion pro-cras-ti-NAY-TOR that I am: Check check.
It's 3:06 in the afternoon, and I'm still wearing my pajamas. Granted, they're whimsical, black and white, Fair Isle-patterned, Victoria Secret long underwear pajamas, but it's after 8 a.m., and I'm still wearin' 'em. The gas logs are blazing, my black lab is snoring on her Christmas-present new dog bed, and my toddler is napping. Finally.
It's not that I've been lazing about, as my husband likes to say, "eating Bon Bons." (What ARE Bon Bons, by the way? They sound like something French and dirty.) So far today, I've fed my dog and child, helped my husband find his wallet, made up a grading calendar and graded assignments for an online writing class I'm teaching, checked both of my work email accounts, washed several loads of laundry, finished a novel assigned by my faculty advisor at Vermont College, and prepped and started a big, fat crockpot of turkey chili for tonight's supper. Yet, I'm still in my pajamas. If Publisher's Clearing House arrives at the door--like I'm sure they will since I've been filling out those daggum envelopes for years--I will be That Woman. You know, the one in her housecoat with the greasy hair, covering her face and shouting, "Oh, law, I can't believe I'm on T.V. like this!" Of course, I'll be in my cute Fair Isle pajamas.
This is all to say that in spite of each of the aforementioned tasks being important, I'm still procrastinating. Here's why:
I arrived home from Montpelier, Vermont and VCFA on Sunday, January 8, exhausted from travel and desperately happy to see my family. At the airport in Greenville, South Carolina, where I last landed, my two year-old towhead of a daughter broke from her father and sprinted through a crowd of people heading toward baggage claim, and leapt into my arms. My God--what a life! Two days after returning home, two of our best friends in the world and their twin 16 month-olds arrived at our tiny house in the mountains, and we had a wonderful few days together, eating and drinking and chasing kiddos and laughing with more friends. Then, my parents came to visit for the day before leaving on one of their many jaunts about the globe (they've been burning up the mountain highway to our house for, oh, the past 2 1/2 years). Then my husband and I poohed out a bit over the weekend. Sure, we went grocery shopping and cleaned up and played with our daughter and hiked with friends and I began cleaning my Jabba the Hut of a desk, but we poohed out.
Which brings us to today. I gave myself last week, as a gift, to regroup after the residency and to enjoy time with friends. But now it's time for the heavy lifting. For the work on the many, many pages of creative and critical writing I'm to mail to my advisor in three weeks. But I find myself, home again, willing to do anything else that needs doing in my house, other than write. Because writing is hard. And I'm a big, stinkin' mess of procrastination. The Pro-Crass-ti-nay-TOR: able to avoid the-thing-she-loves-doing-most in a single bound. More on this at a later date. (See: I'm sneaky.)
The residency itself was a good one, my first with Vermont College. The campus was snow-covered and lovely, the lectures for the most part interesting and helpful--some downright inspiring. The new friends, especially, a joy. Writers are a ridiculous, wonderful, ego-centric, odd, irreverent bunch, and it's always nice to be in the company of my people. Even the dorm room I stayed in--though some may disagree--wasn't so bad. Though I did feel, upon entering, a swift urge to paper the walls with Matthew McConaughey posters and blast the Dave Matthews Band. And order pizza at 3 a.m. And wear flip-flops. And go to breakfast wearing the same clothes I'd worn the night before. But I digress.
See, the dorm:
Not so bad, right? Bigger than my freshman year dorm room at Clemson. (On a side note, I slept like a rock in Vermont, woke each day bright-eyed at 6:30 a.m. Wierd.)
And the campus, small and lovely:
And Montpelier, the state capitol, only a ten minute's walk down the hill from the College. I spent quite a bit of time there with new friends and alone, dining and shopping and wandering:
Around the State House...
across foot bridges...
at the oft-frequented Postive Pie 2, our unofficial residency hangout, with new writer-friends Rachel and Kim ...
through the streets of town...
wandering neighborhoods, admiring the old Victorian homes and added-upon cottages... watching the Winooski River slowly freeze at its edges, despite the unseasonably warm weather...
hiking in icy Hubbard Park, with my new friend, writer Amy Wallen...
climbing the old tower there...
utilizing the Port-o-Potty (cutest I've ever seen... and yes, I've seen a few Port-o-Potties)...
It was heaven, that time in the woods. Even though I slipped on the ice and thought I fractured my elbow. But I digress.
So now I'm home, trying like all heck to organize my life, my work, my writing, my schooling, my family into one neat, color-coordinated schedule. I'm trying to figure out how I can do it all, and do it well.
I may give myself one more week....
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