Snow in New Orleans

Impossible Magic

Tuesday morning I awoke and looked out my window in wonder at the snowfall. My son and I squealed in delight as we took in our backyard, a small accumulation white snow on the concrete.

We’d heard news that there would be snow, but I felt like maybe all the hype was for nothing, it probably wouldn’t really happen and we’d all be disappointed. I mean, this is New Orleans, the hottest place I’ve ever lived by a long-shot. The winters are mostly California weather, mid-70s, sunny. Some cold spells for a couple days, an occasional freeze maybe, but snow?? Snow here seems as unlikely as snowfall in Los Angeles.

I raced to get dressed, I was convinced the snow would last for a few minutes and then stop. My kids were slow and fussy, my husband dragging his heels. I announced that I was leaving, that if I missed the snow I would cry.

I raced out to take it all in, a feeling of absolute winter magic. This was really happening. I’d longed for this, for cold, for some semblance of a winter, for some connection to nature and its cycles, I’d dreamed of a white Christmas. Sledding, bundling, god, just an excuse to wear pants. Mother fucking SNOW.

The street was silent, peaceful, no cars, abandoned. After a few blocks of seeing nobody, I ran into one of my neighbors - I feel like I’m in Home Alone, she said. Isn’t this insane?

Bonkers, I said.

I wondered why my phone wasn’t blowing up, the way it had been during the recent terrorist attack on New Years, friends reaching out who’d heard about it on the news, to check in and see if I was ok. The terrorist attack seemed par for the course in New Orleans somehow, people always getting shot and killed on Bourbon St. So much tragedy here, so much violence, always pulling ourselves together. I don’t know how to explain this sentiment without sounding horrifically callous, it’s not that it didn’t affect me at all, I couldn’t listen to NPR, I didn’t want to know the details, the pain of the victims, I was too disturbed, too sad. But it felt like an extension of what we already got here, more violence, more death, more pain.

This was something so different, magic. Could it be that people didn’t know about this? That this snowfall wasn’t groundbreaking national news? I started to text friends.. It’s snowing!!!!

I walked around and took pictures, videos of the empty streets.

I went back home and did my best to wrestle my kids into warm clothes. We headed through the blasting snow to our neighbor’s house to roast marshmallows.

Is this real? I asked her. Is this climate change, or what is this? She told me that there was some impossible chance that this could happen, that it was a severe cold front mixed with a large storm in the gulf, a snowfall like this hadn’t happened since 1895.

I plopped onto her couch and drank coffee and watched the snowfall as the kids played. Not moving, just watching, just taking it in.

It snowed heavily all day, not stopping for a moment until 5PM, at which point we went outside to take in 10 inches of soft blanketed snow. New Orleans doesn’t have the infrastructure to deal with this, no street plows, no salt, so we were all stuck home for the week, everything shut down. I wasn’t happy to have my kids all week, but I gave in to bad parenting. Screen time, I finished off the cake my babysitter had made a couple days before, I decided to let myself “winter” to be slow, and cozy and unproductive and to eat too many carbs. Fuck it, it’s a snow week.

We took our kids sledding on the levee the next day and screamed in delight as we plummeted down the hill on giant crawfish trays. We need more of this, fun outside, connection to nature. We don’t get that here, I said. I missed that most about living in California - ocean, mountains. But LA was on fire right now, and here we were in New Orleans, playing in the snow. The world was upside down.

This morning I decided to write. It’s been too long since I’ve posted anything. My kids were home for 3 weeks over winter break, then 2 had weeks of daycare, now we had them again for a full week. I was flailing in my lack of childcare and independent time. My husband spent yesterday working while I cared for the kids, and I was done.

I pulled out my computer and my kids started crawling over it, pressing buttons, pulling out the plug (which I needed because my computer is 10 years old and won’t hold a charge). I started spinning out in rage. STOP! LEAVE ME ALONE!!! I got up and woke up my husband. GET UP GET UP!! I’m taking an hour, I need to write! My kids still burst into my room to interrupt me but I demanded my husband take them. I felt shitty about my rage, but sometimes rage helps you get what you need. I’ll apologize to my kids in a minute.

For now, I’m taking this quiet moment. I’m posting this experience. I just want to memorialize this. My love for the snow. This feeling of absolute magic. That anything is possible.