For The Love Of Snow

It's 11/11/11. I woke to snow on the ground for the first time this year. Some would sigh about that I suppose, but having lived in the South for many, many years, waking to snow is a delight. Right about February 1st I may be ready to slit my wrists because of it, but today I'm enjoying it.

The snow blankets the pastures leaving just enough green for the horses. White clumps cling to the trees and fence line like great dollops of frosting. And now that the leaves are all but gone, I'm noticing things about the barn I've never seen. Like the arched wooden windows. They look like "Ten Commandment" tablets stretching across the top. I wonder who took the time to design and build that beautiful old barn. Old shacks in the South spoke to me years ago, and now I find that the barns and rolling hills in the North have a voice all their own.

I was a wild child. Born a coal miner's granddaughter, I spent most if not all my time letting my imagination run free. I loved the snow covering the Appalachian mountains in West Virginia. It reached far and wide--from the north to the south and it carried me in both directions.

The barns, outbuildings, clapboard churches, and towns dotting the landscape were the same. In both directions. I found the people were the same. With families and jobs and hopes and dreams, it didn't matter where they originated. They loved and had been loved. They lived good and hard and when they died, they were mourned by honest hearts whose lives they touched.

People are the same when you get right down to it. Just like the snow that covers the ground. It falls on old dilapidated buildings in the country like it falls on the city's glass skyscrapers. It looks the same when it covers the BMW as it does on my brother-in-law's John Deere. It's no respecter of persons. I guess my point is that there is a fine line dividing the north and south. Does is really stop at the Mason Dixon line or is it broken in places? I realize men defined it in 1865 for the purpose of war, but in my mind, today on 11/11/11, that line is a little less apparent. The landscape doesn't seem to care where you're from. It loves you right where you are. Just like a family. Just like snow.

Blessings to you and yours.