Snow and..........

I spent a lot of years wanting to live where there are four definite seasons. I wanted SNOW. I wanted to walk in snow. Make a snowman. Sit in front of a fire and watch the snow come down. This year I got my wish. And, I learned something.....snow is not special when it happens everyday.
When it snows on the Mississippi Coast......THAT is magical. Walking through the sand while the snow comes down......THAT is magical.
Holding on to my dignity while I try to negotiate icy steps is not magical...it is comedic.

Is there anything more forlorn that a pair of swans standing on the ice in the middle of a frozen pond?

I spent many years being afraid of my mother. People thought we were extremely close because I am the youngest and the only girl. It was a weird situation. I was afraid of her, but I did not want to be away from her.
When I was nineteen, I finally began to understand and separate the fear from the love. That was the first time my mother openly attempted suicide in front of me. I used to find suicide notes stuck in my books. I always kept books I loved and would re-read them. By the time I found a note, she would be over whatever it was. Nothing was ever said. Talk about a surreal life. This night she was upset because I had gone out with a group of friends......and one boy that I was interested in.......there was a fender bender so it was about 12:30am when I got home. My mother flew at me in a rage (sounds trite, but that is exactly how it was). Then she went into the kitchen and started swallowing pills. At that time we lived just across the street from someone she worked with who she admired. I started to go across and ask the woman for help, and my mother went totally crazy, crying and holding the door so I could not go out. BUT, it was only because she did not want any outsider to know. This was the epiphany for me. My mother was doing this for attention, nothing more. I stood there...stunned... looking at her, She went into the bathroom and made herself throw up.

Later, for the first time ever, I talked to my oldest brother's wife about it. That is when I found out that my mother had done this often. Apparently she used to say she was going to drown herself. Or, take pills. It is almost certain that I heard this from the time I was an infant. People will do and say anything in front of babies and small children. They think if babies can't understand the words,they won't understand the emotions. Then afterwards, when everything is relatively okay, nothing is said, because if you don't give voice to it then it just goes away.

I understand why my mother was the way she was. She spent her life filled with guilt for surviving the car/train wreck that killed her family. My mother was fourteen when the car her family was riding in was hit by the mail train. The last thing she remembered is telling her four-year old brother that if he did not sit still the man in the train would get him. He lived four hours. Her mother, father and sister were killed instantly.