Winter Southern Style 2

I have so much to do, but I’d rather sit and sip and watch the snow fall.

 

It started slowly as I left America’s Best with my new contacts.  The snowflakes were so sparse, I smiled thinking ‘much ado about nothing,’ and stopped at Publix on my way home.  I didn’t need anything, but it was on my way.  I picked up a few things that were on special, but even the express lane had a very long line.

I don’t do lines unless it’s an emergency – this was not.  I abandoned my cart and went out the door into snow falling so thick the distant skyline was gone.  Birmingham drivers have difficulties driving in the rain, forget snow. 

I decided home was the best place to be and soon. I have everything I need there for the cat and me: a pantry and fridge full of food; good wine, cold beer, a stack of books to read (courtesy of the library); candles and oil lamps to read by if the power goes; battery TV for the news.

I also have a lot of work to do: a manuscript to edit for a client, paintings for my March show, a poem for an April contest, but it could all wait. 

It would all still be there when this fleeting wonder of nature stops and fades to memory and a few digital photographs that cannot begin to capture the magic of it all.  I put on a few layers of clothes, changed flats to socks and Sketchers, pulled the old beret down over my ears, and headed out for a walk with my camera.

Southside is a small village nestled comfortably in the city limits of Birmingham, Alabama, and I was not the only villager out and about to seize the moment:  children sledded down their front yard’s hill on 15^th Avenue encouraging their Mom to do the same; my Asian neighbor was out with her umbrella, sometimes sunbrella now turned ‘snowbrella’; the dog walker, whose large dog pretty much walks her, smiled as the dog tiptoed across the lawn; the new Yankee couple strolled by holding hands laughing at being given the day off for snow; and others too numerous to list.  Kindred souls all – out to play in the snow – smell the proverbial roses.

 

Home now.  I’m writing this by the window of my aerie, sipping a steaming cup of mulled wine, occasionally glancing at the still falling snow on the street below and contemplating the manuscript awaiting my red pen.

Tomorrow the sun will melt it all; Sunday the rain will wash what's left of it all away. Monday, it'll be as if it never was.  

Winter Southern Style – it's a fleeting thing.

© Perle Champion

Winter Southern Style

The groundhog predicted 6 more weeks of winter, which would take us to March 15. As snow covers the ground and continues to fall here in Birmingham, Alabama this morning, it would appear that he was right. For this moment, it is winter.

This is the South; however, and winter is a now and then, here and there sort of thing. Today there is snow, but yesterday was just a mild breezy day and the day before that the temperature went from early morning 34 to 70 in the afternoon. I ate lunch at a picnic table by my office at the Colonnade and enjoyed the sun.

The weathermen are holding court as if this is a blizzard; it is not. There’ll be no TV to speak of this morning. They’ve preempted the Today Show and Good Morning America. I may get the Early Show, as the CBS folks are a little more sensible and give us a weather strip at the bottom of the screen. No matter, I’ve turned it off.

I walked amid the snowflakes before dawn this morning, and snapped a few pictures of this transient white wonder of nature, and went out again at daybreak. The snow is patchy at best with the grass showing through. The city streets are wet, not slippery. The freeway overpasses are another story, but I’ll not venture there until the veiled sun does its job of thawing them. Even now, it's playing peek-a-boo through the clouds.

So the groundhog was right. We’re having 6 more weeks of winter, but here in Birmingham, we’re having them Southern style – here and there; now and then.

Tuesday, it’ll be 62 and Wednesday 67 and sunny, so I’ll be back in shirtsleeves. This is my kind of winter. This is winter Southern Style.
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Perle Champion, University of Texas at San Antonio fine arts major, currently lives in Birmingham, Alabama’s colorful Southside, writing, painting, attending art openings, cooking, reading on the porch swing, and writing. Published in Birmingham News, Birmingham Weekly, Birmingham Arts Journal, Daily Mountain Eagle, First Draft Magazine, and Bantam’s Sneak Peek website.
http://perles-poems.blogspot.com/; http://perlesink.com/; http://perlesink.blogspot.com/