Notes from a Houston snowstorm

Freezing rain started Monday evening. Tiny ice pellets pinging against the surfaces of my back patio. Inside, I was tending to my beef stew. I’d escape out back every half-hour or so to see if anything had changed. I could detect the heft of the sharp drops against the lights in the yard. Not snow. The snow was still hours away.

I never miss a snow day, a snow hour, a snow minute. If there’s even a slight chance for snow, I’m outside waiting for it. There have been times when all of Houston thinks a forecast was a bust, but if I see a single snowflake -- and sometimes that’s all I’ll see -- I consider it a win. Because this appeared to have all the makings of an actual snow storm I stayed up and waited, throwing on my yellow wool coat and yellow waterproof boots every few minutes to witness the moment when frozen rain started to drift lightly under the streetlight.

Around 1 a.m. I wanted to give up, but I pushed through and around 2 a.m. the drops changed to flakes and swirled in the freezing gusts. I stood in my front yard and giggled, getting softly pelted in the face. I’m a night owl, so I’m pretty accustomed to seeing 2 a.m., but it was still strange to me that I was the only person out on my street, watching it snow. DON’T YOU KNOW A MIRACLE IS OCCURRING? AND YOU CHOOSE TO SLEEP THROUGH IT?

The miracle wasn’t just the snow, but that snow was falling and the power was still on inside my house.

I walked the perimeter of my yard, watching the street glaze over in white. I remembered the horrors of the inauguration and started to cry, mourning for the end of tenuous safety for so many people. The return of the peculiarly stupid chaos. The defiant Nazi salute. The migrant crying at the border who was just an hour away from her appointment to cross. The billionaires with a front-row seat to the circus. The White House website turning into just another Trump property. The January 6 pardons.

Even Melania’s hat had an unmistakable stink of evil.

So I found myself out in the middle of the night in my street, snow falling, letting myself fall apart. I went inside and slept when I could pull myself away from the romance of the flakes.

I woke up to a gray sky and the snow still blowing. Lawns and plants covered in white. The brightness through the windows was otherworldly. We tried to take the dogs out into it, but they were confused and disoriented. We walked to the bayou. The banks were covered in inches of snow, the water continued to flow through. Again, we saw no one.

The snow ended around 10 a.m., and there wasn’t much more to do as an adult trying to stay relatively dry. I touched the snow, which was powdery and fluffy. I allowed my husband to pelt me with one snowball. The rest I left to the neighborhood kids, who fashioned little snow people and went sledding on cardboard, surf boards and anything else they could find down our city’s small hills.

I have formative memories of snow and ice in Houston through living here for 40 years, and I know the kids who experienced this day will remember it forever. I’m so happy for them and their weary bodies tonight. They made the most of it.

I took a couple of snowy walks and took two naps. Nothing else to do, really.

The lege won’t be officially meeting again until Thursday instead of Wednesday, since much of Texas is under a hard freeze tonight into the morning. That hasn’t stopped them from tweeting their rancid thoughts.

I am making great use of the heated footrest that my husband got me for Christmas today. I am taking care to look after our community cats, for whom we have created a warm shelter on the porch with a space heater. I am happy to have had a February writing residency (now nearly six years ago!) in Vermont, so that I am now always prepared for cold with the best gear. I am cozy and warm, and the south will thaw tomorrow.

That said, I don’t think 2025 really starts until next Monday. Go nuts until then.