My Snow Story

Early yesterday morning, I was awaken from a dream I can’t remember by my father who was already staring out the glass doors from their bedroom where I was sleeping in. He told me it was snowing. I got up from bed and had to see for myself. It was snowing indeed! There had been predictions from the weather news days before that it might snow in our area, and Tatay had been on the lookout for snow for two days. And on the third day, snow had finally fallen.

Normally, it doesn’t snow here. This is California, the West Coast! The only place in this state that sees snow every winter are the high mountains. I’ve also heard from the people here that it’s been years, a lot of years, since it last snowed here. When I was here around this time two years ago, I’d certainly seen no snow. So this natural event is definitely something for the people here, even if there are cons (freeway closed, slippery roads, classes suspended, etc.), even more so for Pinoys like us who were born and raised in a country that had never seen snow, and especially for me, who got here just 3 weeks ago.

I didn’t even had to wash my face or my mouth after getting up from bed; I just urinated and went straight outside to see the snow that was falling. I was that excited. With my hair spreading all over and the whole just-woke-up look, Tatay and I posed for pictures. He also knocked on Tito Zaldy’s room to tell him that it was snowing outside. Tito Zaldy had also just woken up.

Around this time, the snow wasn’t that thick yet. And it still melted upon reaching the ground. No white spots everywhere yet. Tatay and I then drove to the hospital to fetch Mama from her night shift. Mama told us that a husband of her co-worker called earlier and told them that it had been snowing hard in some other places in the Antelope Valley, including Palmdale. With Palmdale being the neighboring city and only about 6 miles from where we are, we drove there to see. And we were certainly not disappointed. We were awed upon seeing that this desert area were now all covered in white. Snow had already accumulated in the area and it certainly was winter wonderland. I think that was when it really hit us that “Yey, we can finally see snow and it won’t be in the movies or television or pictures!”

When we went home, Mama had to sleep of course since she was up the whole night for her work at the hospital. I also returned to sleep since my slumber was cut short earlier. Tatay also took a nap. Around 3 or 4 hours later, we woke up to see that our area had turned into a winter wonderland as well. Our backyard was all white, so were the streets outside, the roofs of houses, everywhere were all white! Picture and video galore followed.

That night, Tatay had to work at the hospital. Since his car is a Honda Civic, he thought it would be best if Tito Zaldy would drive him to work through his Honda Pilot. It’s bigger and could definitely battle the thick snow on the roads. Mama and I went with them. On our way to the hospital, I almost couldn’t believe that I was still in California. Trees and plants and cars around were all white. We even struggled getting the car out on the driveway due to the almost 6 inches snow that had accumulated. It was like I was in New York or somewhere East. We were in a desert city and even the Joshua Trees, tumbleweeds and sand were all white. It was amazing. Freezing cold but still amazing.

With seeing snow being a first for me, comes a lot of firsts as well. For one thing, I’ve finally seen a snowman, a real one! I think I’ve seen just about a dozen of snowmen in different houses around here. I’ve also eaten snow (tasted like crushed ice), been in a snowball fight (got hit hard on my head by Tito Zaldy but it didn’t hurt), lay on the snow and tried making a snow angel (though it didn’t turned out to be an obvious-looking one), stepped on around 6 inches of snow and heard that sort of crunchy sound when one steps on snow, and seen that smooth snow glitters or glistens (kinda like Edward Cullen’s skin when exposed to sunlight in Twilight).

It’s also nice to see a lot of people, especially kids, around here playing with this one-time-only snow. I, of course, have posted a lot of pictures and have even edited a video. I get cheesy like that when I experience something quite extraordinary for the first time. For the record though, I can’t count the times my hands became painfully numb due to the cold since yesterday while playing and taking pictures with the snow. My nose also turned red and I got quite a bit of a running nose. Thankfully though, it wasn’t a nosebleed.

As I’m writing this now, much of the snow had already melted, especially on the roads. Some had turned to ice and had made some grounds slippier. But thanks to photos and videos, the memory of my first snow encounter won’t ever melt.

’tis one’s starting to get old (Pardon my being like a broken record in showing this video to all of you, I’m just excited about it!) but if you haven’t seen it yet, here’s my little winter delight:

~ by Michelle on December 19, 2008.