GREG'S SENSE OF SNOW

I have a strong memory of the first snowfall after I moved to Massachusetts to go to college. I was coming from California, and had convinced myself (or been convinced) that I would hate the cold weather. I made jokes about it, but I was genuinely afraid that I would spend months being unhappy. And then fall arrived, and it got chilly, but fall in north-western Massachusetts is so famously beautiful that the weather really couldn't get me down. But still I thought—when the snow arrives, I will be miserable.

And then the first snowfall happened, and it was sublime. It was like a cloud of soft white feathers. It seemed to be happening in slow motion. I was transfixed, like that dumb scene American Beauty where the kid films the plastic bag blowing in the wind, except instead of one anthropomorphized object, there was a swarm little dancers joyfully spinning all around me. I told myself to remember the experience.

This week, Cleveland had its first snowfall of the season. And it was like a thousand tiny little daggers stabbing my face again and again.



Coming soon on Letters from Cleveland: Greg reports on the special hell that is the "Wintry Mix." They have invented a whole new form of weather here, that I had never heard of! It's going to be a long winter.