It is the natural world’s great seducer and some time ago it arrived to where I was – silently, stealthily and persistently. Like youthful passion, it stole up on me unexpectedly and had enveloped the landscape in an eye-watering whiteness before I noticed.
Rooftops
With feathery perseverance it settled on rooftops, frosted window panes, hushed the countryside, turned trees bottlebrush white and shivered its chilly way into my shoes, when I ventured outside.
Despite this small discomfort, I was glad it came. Somehow, I feel cheated if winter doesn’t provide at least one blanket of snow, to hide the imperfections of the landscape, bring out the wistful and the poetic in us all and turn otherwise sober adults into snowballing street brawlers.
Yet, by its very gentleness, snow is the natural world’s great deceiver. Its arrival may be cheered by hillwalkers, children, winter sports enthusiasts and, perhaps, orthopaedic surgeons, but it brings heartache to farmers, stress to motorists, worry for senior citizens and possible starvation to wildlife.
Cold and unforgiving for those who must cope with its effects, it creates difficulties for commuters and transport workers, generates misery for the homeless and stresses sports event organisers before eventually disappearing in an ugly orgy of slushy grey streets and swollen brown rivers.
Still, there are few of us who can avoid some quickening of the pulse when the first snows gild the winter hills. “There’s snow on the Galtees” was the morning clarion cry that announced, in my native Tipperary, that winter was upon us. Then, when the white stuff finally carpeted the lowlands, my dreamy childhood memories are of hectic snowball fights on carefree days, stolen with youthful exuberance from classroom drudgery. But this came at cost, for snow always exacted a price. There were chilled fingers that required painful reheating, walks with frozen, unresponsive toes to collect supplies when cars refused to start and an egregious dampness that seeped through even the best clothing.
Then or now, the unromantic reality is that snow offers little to recommend it. Come autumn, however, we are gleefully ready to quote anyone who, on the flimsiest evidence, predicts a harsh, snowy winter. We then choose to ignore savvy meteorologists who, when asked to comment on the latest “forecast ”, state they haven’t the faintest idea about the likely weather next Christmas before wearily adding that Irish winters are most often mild and wet.
So, why are we still enthralled to the white stuff and likely to feel cheated if global warming now deprives us of an annual blanketing? Can it be that snow fulfils a deep yearning for a simpler life when time moved at a slower pace and survival was only possible within tightly bonded communities? If we can’t get the car out our driveway because of a drift, we must walk to the shop and en route chat – perhaps, for the first time – with our neighbours. And on arrival we immediately find we have something in common with everyone else, the ice-breaking question being “Is it bad up your way?”
And where the answer is yes, people will voluntarily clear footpaths; farmers grit roads and arrive in four-wheel-drives to rescue stranded motorists while others busy themselves checking on those living alone. Heroes are born of gardaí who brave snowdrifts to get expectant mothers to hospital, helicopter pilots who deliver food to snowbound homesteads and mountain rescuers who ski frozen hillsides to reach marooned climbers. Greed and self-interest are put aside and Ireland becomes the nearest thing we will ever have to a socialist utopia on that rarest of occasions when both Jeremy Corbyn and Pope Francis would be proud of us.
The socialism doesn’t last, of course, and neither did the snow. It disappeared as quickly as it arrived, so I had no opportunity to reacquaint with those living nearby while, to my knowledge, no heroes were created by the media. Yet this light fall briefly slowed everything down and set me thinking about how much we miss when running hard just to stay aboard the consumerist treadmill, which means I must now retract something I said earlier.
Snow actually has something to recommend it, for it is nature’s leveller. Briefly, it dampens rampant individualism and brings people together in a spirit of interdependence and harmony while providing a brief opportunity for each one of us to bring forth the best and most benevolent side of our nature.