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Snow
An hour ago, I was sitting here, writing a journal entry, my first in a long while, and I was thinking about it very slowly, how to explain why I haven't been here, although I have, and why I haven't been able to speak. But that's a story for another time. An hour ago, Claire came running into my room, wearing coat and boots dripping water, and said, "Iona, it's snowing, it's snowing."
I jumped up and followed her out, and then I ran back in and said I need a coat, I need a hat, and we ran into the kitchen and then she said I need shoes, not slippers, and we ran into each other and into Ben and then outside onto the Master's Field. It's huge and spreading and white. Outside on Jowett, each of the lampposts was illuminating falling glitter. There were people drunkenly stumbling into it the thick layer of white, and people waking up dazed and wide-eyed and emerging to throw ungainly snowballs.
"It must be beautiful on Broad Street," I said wistfully, and so we went. We walked down Holywell and past the rows of bikes all frosted in white, and then Claire made the suggestion: we should go up Forder's tower. So we ran down the middle of the road, avoiding the people stumbling through the snow to Hassan's, and clambered through the main door into college. (With the help of Claire's friend Biology James, who wanted to come with us to take pictures.) In the front quad the snow was untouched - every leaf and every gargoyle pristinely frosted - and the porter only smiled indulgently when we ran past, down onto the snow-covered gravel and up into the tower. Many, many flights of stairs later, we emerged on the top of the tower to see all the roofs of all the colleges covered in snow, Christ Church looking softer than usual in the streetlights, the whole sweep of the city made darkly wonderful at three am. And then, the angular, joyous jerking of someone dancing through the snow.
"Who dances like that?" James asked.
"Ben!" Claire and I yelled at the same time, and went running down to meet him. He came with us through into the back quad, which was ghostly, the snow reflecting off itself and the lamps and lighting everything from below. It was thick and untouched there too, and we walked round the trees and dying flowers and yelled to people we didn't know to come down and play.
It had stopped when we were climbing up to the top of the tower, but when I left college the flakes had started to fall again, bigger this time and making thick drifts at the edges of the roads. Round by the side of the Radcliffe Camera, I asked, "Do you suppose the dons of All Souls are playing very quietly behind the walls?"
We had a look through the gates, but we didn't see them. I guess we didn't look hard enough. Round by the High Street and then on New College Lane, everything was narrow and Narniaesque, the lamps lighting up the people snowball fighting. By the Bodleian, I was thinking about a picture I was looking at yesterday, which shows me and Claire and a few others, wearing sub fusc and red carnations, holding balloons and laughing beneath the bright blue sky. It's a beautiful picture. Tonight under the streetlights and the falling snow, we walked down the same route, the same place Ben took the picture, and it was beautiful again, dark and like ice but visually, viscerally stunning.
I reminded Ben of the picture and he laughed, and said, "I like snow, but I'm hyper-aware of the holes in my shoes."
We walked home through a snowball fight on Longwall and Holywell, and watched a poor unfortunate get a glorious handful of snow down his (drunken) neck. He didn't react for about ten seconds, at which point he said mildly, "Oh, now I'm cold", and flumped gracefully onto the road.
Back on Jowett, the snow had entirely filled in our footprints, and there were small crunching sounds of snow packing as my boots compressed it again. The porters waved, as they do, but just as we were getting in, New's bells started to chime three and underlined the note of the surreal. I said goodnight to Claire, went inside, hung up my jeans and watched in bemusement as packed ice thudded into the carpet.
It's now stopped snowing, but the thick layer of white is still evident outside the window, and it looks very much like it's going to stick. Three days ago, I turned twenty. Tomorrow, Claire and I are going out on the field to build a snowman.
I jumped up and followed her out, and then I ran back in and said I need a coat, I need a hat, and we ran into the kitchen and then she said I need shoes, not slippers, and we ran into each other and into Ben and then outside onto the Master's Field. It's huge and spreading and white. Outside on Jowett, each of the lampposts was illuminating falling glitter. There were people drunkenly stumbling into it the thick layer of white, and people waking up dazed and wide-eyed and emerging to throw ungainly snowballs.
"It must be beautiful on Broad Street," I said wistfully, and so we went. We walked down Holywell and past the rows of bikes all frosted in white, and then Claire made the suggestion: we should go up Forder's tower. So we ran down the middle of the road, avoiding the people stumbling through the snow to Hassan's, and clambered through the main door into college. (With the help of Claire's friend Biology James, who wanted to come with us to take pictures.) In the front quad the snow was untouched - every leaf and every gargoyle pristinely frosted - and the porter only smiled indulgently when we ran past, down onto the snow-covered gravel and up into the tower. Many, many flights of stairs later, we emerged on the top of the tower to see all the roofs of all the colleges covered in snow, Christ Church looking softer than usual in the streetlights, the whole sweep of the city made darkly wonderful at three am. And then, the angular, joyous jerking of someone dancing through the snow.
"Who dances like that?" James asked.
"Ben!" Claire and I yelled at the same time, and went running down to meet him. He came with us through into the back quad, which was ghostly, the snow reflecting off itself and the lamps and lighting everything from below. It was thick and untouched there too, and we walked round the trees and dying flowers and yelled to people we didn't know to come down and play.
It had stopped when we were climbing up to the top of the tower, but when I left college the flakes had started to fall again, bigger this time and making thick drifts at the edges of the roads. Round by the side of the Radcliffe Camera, I asked, "Do you suppose the dons of All Souls are playing very quietly behind the walls?"
We had a look through the gates, but we didn't see them. I guess we didn't look hard enough. Round by the High Street and then on New College Lane, everything was narrow and Narniaesque, the lamps lighting up the people snowball fighting. By the Bodleian, I was thinking about a picture I was looking at yesterday, which shows me and Claire and a few others, wearing sub fusc and red carnations, holding balloons and laughing beneath the bright blue sky. It's a beautiful picture. Tonight under the streetlights and the falling snow, we walked down the same route, the same place Ben took the picture, and it was beautiful again, dark and like ice but visually, viscerally stunning.
I reminded Ben of the picture and he laughed, and said, "I like snow, but I'm hyper-aware of the holes in my shoes."
We walked home through a snowball fight on Longwall and Holywell, and watched a poor unfortunate get a glorious handful of snow down his (drunken) neck. He didn't react for about ten seconds, at which point he said mildly, "Oh, now I'm cold", and flumped gracefully onto the road.
Back on Jowett, the snow had entirely filled in our footprints, and there were small crunching sounds of snow packing as my boots compressed it again. The porters waved, as they do, but just as we were getting in, New's bells started to chime three and underlined the note of the surreal. I said goodnight to Claire, went inside, hung up my jeans and watched in bemusement as packed ice thudded into the carpet.
It's now stopped snowing, but the thick layer of white is still evident outside the window, and it looks very much like it's going to stick. Three days ago, I turned twenty. Tomorrow, Claire and I are going out on the field to build a snowman.
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And happy birthday to you. Belatedly.
:)
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I remember the first time it snowed at Kenyon during my first year. On campus, you had all the beautiful old (by our standards, not yours) buildings and dorms covered in shining snow. The moment you went off in any direction, even just a few feet from the door in some buildings, it was like a scene right out of the Frost poem: The woods are lovely, dark and deep. My window that year faced the Freshman Quad, and I could watch everyone throwing snowballs and building snowmen and making snow angels.
And then the stuff stayed for four more months, piling up more than two feet deep, and by March we were all considerably less enamored with it. ;)
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It sounds lovely. No, even four months of it sounds lovely! Maybe I'd say differently if ours hadn't melted in four hours.
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Hope you had a great birthday!
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We have snow, too. It began last night just as Alex walked me to the bus stop, and it's still here, though melting now.
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Is it snowed in snowy or just generic snow? I'm having visions of being stranded in Paddington instead of snugly tucked up in Balliol Special Collections. Eek.
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On the other hand, the road outside the hostel has been a sheet of ice two days running. Interesting walking.
(Also I may have to steal the library. And the librarians.)
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Happy belated birthday. :)
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(One of the flatmates tonight: "Iona isn't fazed by anything. Oh, no, wait, snow turns her into a squealing eejit.")
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Happy birthday, retroactively! Welcome to your second decade.
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And thank you! The thought of two decades on earth makes me need to eat a lot of sugar.
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I'm sorry I couldn't make it to the party. Everything sort of went arse over last week. Sigh. But I will no doubt in back in Ox sooner or later!
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And yes, you were missed!
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I always used to love wandering around the campus about three days after it had snowed and seeing all these random carrots everywhere: melted snowperson noses!
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You know, I never even thought about building a snowwoman. Well, I suppose the snowperson would have been gender-neutral, given that it wouldn't have had any gender-related-characteristics, but I never even thought about the word. *smacks self* Bad feminist.
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"Boy or Girl? You choose. - www.Baby-Gender-Selection.com. How to conceive the gender of your choice."
My friend the Supermodel teaches primary school, and when she first started training the teacher told her to tell the children to draw snowpersons, not snowmen, and she said that at first she thought, oh God, typical stupid political correctness stuff. But then she noticed that the kids actually drew much more creative snowpeople if they weren't told "snowmen": snowmen got hats and pipes and buttons, but snowpeople got skirts and sticks and handbags and police helmets and football shorts and all sorts of things. Isn't that cute? I really love it!