A Southern Snow

TODAY'S BIG STORY:  My phone rang around six o'clock...in the morning! My daughter was calling to tell me that her backyard was covered in snow and that her two chocolate labs were going crazy ~ rolling around and jumping up and down!  "Quick!" she insisted.  "Get up and see if it is snowing at your house!"

I replied that it wasn't even daylight at my house, but she persisted with her demands that I must get up!  That is how Southerners behave when we get a southern snow. We get plenty of rain, Spring Break sunshine, and our fair share of storms, but only on rare occasions do we get snow.  And just like those labs, we go crazy!

So...I turned on a light (as it was still dark), put on my housecoat and my big coat (as it was also freezing), grabbed my camera, and proceeded outside.  The southern snow did not disappoint.  In the soft half-light of dawn, the world behind my house seemed almost dreamlike.  I decided to join the frenzy and take pictures of the new-fallen snow...literally at the crack of dawn.  When I turned on my camera, a battery symbol was blinking across the viewfinder. Just my luck...my battery was dead.  I simply wanted to take some quick point and shoot pictures and head back inside my warm house.  Now I would have to dig out the SLR camera, deal with manual lighting and focusing, and hope that the battery was charged.

The first three pictures I took were solid black, which is when I realized that I had not taken off the lens cap.  By this point, my teeth were chattering, and I could hardly hold the camera steady; still, I persevered.  The luminous glow of the snow against the first blush of daylight created a beautifully-tinted quality to the images.

In the 2005 movie adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, my favorite scene is the walk at dawn.  Elizabeth (Keira Knightley) and Darcy (Matthew McFadyen) meet each other in a field just as the sun begins to rise.  The soft glow on her face as she watches him walk towards her is absolutely beguiling.  I can watch that particular scene a thousand times for the cinematography alone.  That same snowy silkiness had fallen from the sky and had surrounded my home.

Despite the chill, I braved the early morning elements to capture the fleeting southern snow.  In a few hours, the beauty would melt away, and the moment of awe would be forgotten.  My daughter knew for sure that a southern snow is not something to be missed.

 

Dianne ; )