I ask my daughter to look up information on the internet about the ice storm headed our way as I make lunch. “It’s Luna!” she says “Winter storm Luna — what a beautiful name for an ice storm!” She is enchanted and I agree — a beautiful name for such a deadly force of nature.
AccuWeather.com reports that “Meteorologists are monitoring a significant ice storm tracking through
the Midwest. This storm will cause substantial travel problems in the
Midwest this afternoon before shifting into the Great Lakes tonight. The
threat will even turn into the mid-Atlantic and parts of New England on
Monday.” Source
Outside my windows the ice storm makes her first shy appearance in a swirl of white snowflakes as big as pearl buttons mixed with ice pellets that look like Venetian beads and shattered Swarovski crystals.
I made tomato soup this afternoon, from the tomatoes I canned this fall. Freshly risen bread is ready to be put in the oven. Tomato soup and toasted cheese sandwiches on a cold winter day always remind me of Connecticut.
Before my family moved (after my father’s death) to Florida and long before my family got scattered to different parts of the country, we lived in Connecticut and were marked, I think, with a love for sharp winds that blow in desolate places.
On the phone with my sister, Terry, I tell her, “You should see me all bundled up. Layers and layers; a down vest, a ski jacket and another ski jacket on top of that, two scarves, a hat and gloves!” She says she is imagining me looking like I did as a toddler all wrapped up against the snow.
“Do you remember when Mother would hang the laundry on the line outside and when she brought it in it would be so stiff, so frozen, that she could stand it up by itself?” Terry asks. “She would stand a pair of pants up to lean companionably against a shirt, do you remember that? Do you remember when she would make snow ice cream? How magical that seemed?”
I do remember those things. I remember the first time I saw snow, my big brother Tommy on my right and my big sister Terry on my left, both of them connected by holding my hands. “You can walk on it!” Terry said. “If you sink in we will pull you out.” Tommy assured me. And so the first time that I ever ‘walked on water’ was with the two of them.
Everything seems magical to me now about a time when we were all together.