A Snow Day Meet Cute

I’m not sure where to start, so maybe it will be at the short end of the stick. Maybe I can talk about what it was like growing up in a divorced home. Or maybe even how shitty things were growing up in a home with parents who didn’t really like one another. But all that feels just a little whiny. Maybe it’s better to start at an ironic beginning. A meet cute. Really, the cutest meet. 

My parents met in a cabin in the woods during a snowstorm on the fourth of July. 

My mom was enrolled in an early childhood education program at the University of Washington. My dad was getting his undergraduate degree there. As the holiday weekend neared students made plans for celebrations. My mom and two of her classmates decided to hike in the Wallowa forest in Oregon. 

Mike and Roe. Mike was an easy going guy who always had something kind to say but wasn’t really memorable enough for my mom to give me many details about. Roe was a tall, lanky blondie who seemed to think that he was above others...and not just because of his height. 

These three unlikely friends headed out on the hike. It was sunny and brisk. My mom has always loved the trees and the mountains. After growing up on the east coast, nature like this seemed like a breath of fresh air that she could pull all the way into the corners of her soul. I love to think of my mom on this hike. Before she was about to meet my dad. Looking around at all the beauty around her. The fullness of the green. The way the sun sparked off the snow on the mountain. The squishy brown mud beneath her feet. In my mind I throw in a few wild flowers, bursting onto the meadows they walked through, fiery sunset red, intricate, lacy whites, blue, bubbly petals. My mom hiked,  unaware that the series of events about to unfold would rip these visions away from her slowly over the years. That her eyesight would be stolen and these images in her memories would be clearer than if she were standing right there, in front of the mountain itself. 

As they walked they felt invigorated. They felt warm even as their breath turned to steam as they headed on. They crossed a stream. My mom slipped on a log and her leg went in. The icy cold water woke her out of the spell the hike had her under. A cold shiver ran down her spine. The air had changed. The sky, at first a brilliant blue was now clotted with grey clouds and a sinister promise. 

Impossible. A snow day in July? 

But nature doesn’t give a shit. It has a fate to enact. The first ridiculous snowflake fluttered down in front of my mom’s face as she stood, coming out of the stream. 

Wet and cold the three hiked on. With each step they liked each other a little less. The dread had set in. Were they going to make the whole loop? Would they have to camp in the snow? Roe, who was the only one to pack a tent on the hike, informed my mom and Mike that he would NOT be sharing his tent. He really was a snooty little prick. (Hey, I don’t make the petty rules. This is just how my mom remembers him.) 

And really, this part of the story brings me so much joy. I mean, as a mother myself, I have left the house with absolutely nothing in a diaper bag. I’ve gone off on trips expecting to be sitting all day by the pool only to find myself in a Walmart as soon as I get off the plane buying sweatshirts. I feel that as a person in general I’m rarely as prepared as I should be. I wing things. I jump and hope for the best. But my mom is ALWAYS prepared. In her purse you might find a bag of jellybeans, granola bars, wipes and napkins, a can opener, a poncho...and really maybe even a travel tent. When we go somewhere she has thoroughly researched all the details of the accommodations, the weather and all the things to do. 

Yet, there she was, a version of herself I have never met, unprepared, hiking in a snow storm in July like some fancy free wild woman! 

But she actually wasn’t feeling all that fancy free. She was stomping through the muddy, frosty ground with her wet, soggy, cold boots hoping that Roe suddenly goes bald. How much confidence would he still have after he loses all that pretty blond hair, huh? (Again, not my rules, this guy must’ve just been a huge jerk because my mom legit still seems mad at him.)

And then she looked up. At first she looked up to simply stare daggers at the back of Roe’s soon to be bald head. But then she saw it. A wisp. A beacon. A literal fucking smoke signal. 

Drifting up into the clouds was her destiny. 

They followed the smoke through the snow, which was really coming down now. It was like the sky had just opened up like a feather pillow. Eventually they came to a small clearing. A one room cabin and a matching outhouse. 

My dad opened the door looking like a proper mountain man. Long, shaggy hair. A beard. A flannel shirt left open at the collar. The fire glowing in its place behind him making his green eyes shine. A real hunk as I imagine. And a promise of shelter and warmth. 

Roe decided to pitch his tent despite the cabin and the fire...but seriously...fuck that guy, am I right? 

The air in the cabin felt like a big hug. Outside as the snow persisted to dump, inside there was hot tea and mac n cheese and laughter and… more hikers. 

Over the next few hours more hikers seeking refuge had also found the cabin. They packed into the one room like shivery sardines. They stripped out of wet clothes and laid them out to dry as their pink cheeks slowly warmed. My mom stood next to my dad by the fire. They seemed to gravitate towards one another. Her shoes were laid out to dry. As they chatted she looked at him out of the corner of her eye. His handsome profile. The wrinkles around his eyes as he smiled at something she said. She felt warmth shoot through her. A tingle. She felt the heat rush up her spine. He was hot. She felt hot. She felt very hot. Actually...she felt on fire. Maybe she really was on fire!

“YIKES!!!!” my mom yelled and pulled her melting nylon tights out away from her skin. They cooled quickly leaving two elf-shoe looking peaks sticking out right above her knees. My mom and dad collapsed over one another in a pile of laughter. The kind where the more you try to stop it the more slips through, like a snowball rolling down a hill, getting louder and louder. Chortles and snorts filling the small cabin like a contagious virus. 

Everyone was laughing now, except for one. No...not Roe. Remember, he is still out in his cold, small, inadequate, pathetic little tent. A woman this time. She sneered at my mom. My theory is that she had eyes on my dad. Maybe if my mom hadn’t burned her pants someone else would be sitting here typing a very different story. 

“What exactly is so funny?” She demanded. 

“We are just tired and giddy,” my mom responded. “Don’t you ever get giddy?” She asked the woman with the mean eyes. I mean seriously, maybe she should just go find Roe. 

“I NEVER get giddy.” the woman said with her nose so high in the air you could literally see her brain up her nostrils. 

This really got my dad. And he and my mom generated jokes for the remainder of the night at this woman’s expense. 

My mom didn’t tell me much about what happened that night. Except that there was a checkers set made from mac n cheese boxes and some scratches in the floor. But I imagine her and my dad curled up together sleeping that night. Arms wrapped around each other. Fingers entwined. I imagine my dad smelling my mom’s hair and feeling at home. I imagine them having this moment that I always wanted for them where they both felt hope and desire and maybe the first twinkles of love. 

In case you were wondering, in the middle of the night there was a knock on the door. It was Roe. The snow had caved in his tent of selfishness in a moment of poetic justice and he had to sleep on the floor with eight other people he most likely felt superior to. 

The next day the sun came out illuminating the white, glowing forest floor. My mom and dad spent the whole day sledding. I still have a picture of that day. The joy on both of their faces makes it hard to believe that things just didn’t work out. I mean really...how does this happen? The world split open, nature sent a huge surprise, pushing these two souls together. Photographed, sitting in the snow, in the middle of July, heads turned up to the sky laughing with abandon. 

I mean they did get together. For a year they wrote love letters. My dad broke off his engagement to another woman. They saw each other four times before their wedding. In one series of letters they both wrote to the other “I wonder if we should get married.’ 

So they did. 

My dad didn’t have enough money for rings, so my mom bought them. Later she would find out that he had simply spent his money on photography equipment. 

I guess when you get to know one another via letters you can create yourself however you want. Like a lot of online dating now I suppose. My dad always felt catfished that my mom had “lied” to him about loving being in nature. Much like me for most of my life, my mom did not meet my dad’s expectations. I guess that girl who grew up in the city in New Jersey didn’t handle it well when they moved out into a mobile home in the middle of nowhere in Alaska so my dad could study moose. 

My mom would long for a big family while my dad wasn’t ever sure he even wanted kids (even after he had one). My mom would finally have me, a miracle child, but doing so would rob her of her eyesight. My dad stayed by her side through 13 surgeries. Later he would tell me of the resentment he felt for not being appreciated enough while doing so. 

The home my parents built would become more like a prison for my dad. He would break free and travel to places where we couldn’t call. Haiti. An aboriginal life skills class in the middle of the desert. Long bike rides. 

Maybe not all love is made to last. And really. That is what this story is about. Even when all the characters involved, all the forces of nature pull you together, you can have a great story, even a great love. But that doesn’t mean that we are made to love forever. It doesn’t mean that cracks don’t form at the edges of that love. Maybe some big love is made for just that moment. A pushing together of fates to get the ball rolling on something else. Maybe some love is just an anomaly. Like a snow storm in the middle of July.