Snowstorms in my life

More memories invoked by closed airports and cancelled flights.

In 1993 Julia and I lived in Amherst, Massachusetts, where I had my Fulbright grant. For break, we decided to go to Florida where Staffan and Anton were to join us. Our closest airport was Bradley in Connecticut, about an hour's drive as opposed to three to the huge Boston Logan. So we packed preparing to enjoy the Sunshine State with Disneyland and all other necessities. It was cold and snowy, but I couldn't in my wildest dreams imagine what was to come. My university host called me on Saturday morning saying that there were storm warnings (then, like now, I never cared about listening to weather forecasts) and that I probably should start for the airport early to beat the weather. We were ready to go, so we went. The storm caught us midway, but we made it, very slowly, to the airport, parked, went to the terminal that was conspicuously quiet. All flights were cancelled until the next day. The information booth where I asked to page my family at Orlando airport didn't provide such service. It was long before mobile phones. I called the Holiday Inn where Staffan and Anton were supposed to be staying to learn that nobody by that name was booked. When I asked whether there were more than one Holiday Inn in Orlando the receptionist laughed.

(It is worth mentioning that I suffer from a rare social phobia that makes every phone call excruciating).

Meanwhile, Staffan was at Orlando airport, having learned that our flight was cancelled and trying to call me at home in Amherst. It also turned out later that my name was misspelt on my ticket so he couldn't get any information from the airline. As far as they were concerned, I didn't exist.

I realised that we would have to spend the night at the airport and made a hard decision: I joined the long queue to the reception of the airport Sheraton. I didn't know that the airline gave vouchers to stranded passengers, so I paid the incredible sum of 80 dollars for a luxurious room where we spent the rest of the evening watching movies and chewing munchies from the minibar. Early the next morning, I went down to check-in, expecting in my naivete to get on the first flight to Florida. Instead, the hall looked like a refugee camp. It took me several hours to reach the counter, just to learn that the nearest flight they could book me on was Wednesday. I think I burst into tears; I tried to explain about the rest of the family having come all the way from Sweden, but there were hundreds of other people with similarly heart-breaking stories, and what could an airline clerk do? There was no point staying at the airport for three days so we went back to Amherst. My car in the parking lot was literally buried in snow. Somebody lent me a shovel. I cried all the way home.

On my answering machine, there was a polite call from the airline to tell me that my flight was cancelled and fifteen calls from Staffan, with his phone number in Orlando. I called it, asked to be connected to his room, got a puzzled stranger, called the reception again, learned that Mr Skott had checked out that morning. No, he didn't say where he was going. Finally, Staffan did get hold of me: they had moved from the expensive Holiday Inn to a more modest motel.

Staffan and Anton went to Gatorland and Sea World, while Julia and I went to the movies and read books. I called my host, and we were invited to dinner. When Wednesday eventually came, the flight was uneventful.

This snowstorm was afterwards called the Storm of the Century. They didn't know what the 21^st century had in store.

PS

Just to remind myself what we HAVE left behind: this is Christmas 2001. Anton came home after two and a half years in California and was delighted to see snow.

This is what we thought we had left behind

Four years ago, in January, when I visited Cambridge without any thought of moving here, it was plus twelve, the air was full of the smell of roses, and I could walk around in my light blouse. When we were moving, our friends lamented that we were going to the land of eternal fog and rain, and we teased them about Cambridgeshire's subtropical climate. Then the first winter came, with cold and snow, and we were told that it didn't happen more often than every thirty years, so I was content that we had had our snow for the rest of our lives. The second winter was still colder, and this one is worse. Mind, I am not complaining, looking at weather reports from other places in Europe. Florence under snow! What's going on? Chaos, traffic accidents, airports closed. The coldest winter in England in a hundred years. I've had enough records. Pretty, yes, but I can enjoy snow on a postcard.

...there is a season

First year when we lived in California I asked a friend: "And when does winter come here?" The answers was: "We've just had it".

This morning I decided to re-pot my plants, which had been long due. All plants I have brought from the old country have survived, so I guess it means they like it here. But some of them really needed larger pots. After I'd done it and was ready for mid-morning coffee we noticed that it was actually sunny and warm, and at long last we sat outdoors again. Then I saw something green coming up between rotten leaves.

There is magic in coming out to the garden first time after winter and tidy up yesteryear's withered plants and see the daffodil tips just about an inch high and nice fat hyacinth buds. The snowstorms have done some damage to my conifers, but most trees and shrubs have made it, and soon, very soon there will be colour, and once again, we have lived though winter.

Of course, just because I said it, tomorrow there will be another snowstorm.

Everything is relative

It is cold.

When I was a child, my parents would tell me that when they were children, sometimes schools would be closed when it was lower than twenty below zero C. I always hoped something like that would happen, but it never did. Perhaps heating in schools was better in my childhood than in my parents' childhood. But we would run to school in any weather, and after school we played outside in any weather.

I remember a particularly cold winter in Moscow, perhaps 1979. It was minus 40. We had tripple layers of clothes indoors and kept gas burning in kitchens.

I also remember ski holidays in Sweden when we would wake up in the morning and look at the thermometer that said minus thirty. The car wouldn't start. By the time we stood on the slope, it would get really warm, mere minus ten.

So why am I freezing now in just around zero?

No sun, no moon

No sun - no moon!
No morn - no noon -
No dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day ...
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds - November!



I learned this poem in school and have always recited it to myself this time of year. I forgot who wrote it, but - praise Google! - I searched for it now. It's Thomas Hood, English (1799-1845).

British climate must have been different then. Today has been a warm, sunny day, and the moon is just rising, after a beautiful dusk hour, and dawn this morning was stunning. There are still some pears in the pear tree, the marigolds are in full bloom, and three roses have decided to bloom again. Birds are louder than ever. Yes-vember.

By the way...

...it is spring

What next?

After snowstorms, we now have floods. The towpath where I walked last weekend is totally under water. All cars have disappeared from the parking by the river - Staffan has moved ours too. Since it is snowing again I guess the water will rise. So what else can we expect? Earthquakes? Tornados?

Always winter and never Easter

Schools are closed, flights canceled, buses don't run, and my employer advises us to stay at home. All this caused by three inches of snow. They say it hasn't been that much snow here in twenty years. I certainly hope that, statistically, there won't be another winter like this during my lifetime. Staffan says that if Sweden was paralyzed by such an amount of snow, it would be paralyzed for half a year.

I remember when we lived in Massachusetts and it snowed one morning. I didn't think much of it and sent Julia, nine years old, off to school as usual. She came back after fifteen minutes saying that the school bus never came and there wasn't a soul around. Looking out of the window, I saw her track of footprints. The rest was pristine snow. The university classes were cancelled too. I wished we had rules like that when I was a child - we'd stayed at home most of the winter.

Incidentally...

...it is snowing.

Unbelievable

Believe it or not, but we've had frost. This is not what I have left Sweden for, I said to myself scraping frost from the windshield. I could not find the scraper first, thought I had left it behind hoping that I would never need it again. The saddest thing is that my outside plants have almost all died. I am especially upset about those that had survived a week in a moving van, just to be killed by frost.