I love snow. Haven’t seen it in the UK for a while and it never really hangs around but it does bring with it a certain joy and sense of wonder. Don’t ask me why. Is it tied up with childhood Christmas dreams or perhaps a Proustian remembrance of times past throwing snowball at mates and sliding down an icy pavement before getting home to a warm house etc.? Certainly the kids lining up to get on their school bus this morning were giddy with the excitement of it all, lobbing clumps of slush in each other’s faces and down the back of coats. There’s also a sense that the world is somehow renewed or more pristine. The covering that makes for the fairy tale analogies also hides the more obvious aspects of modern life that are less than perfect. Litter, abandoned buildings, scenes of deprivation and on a different level focuses people’s attention away from other perhaps more urgent or pressing issues.
Oddly, though, this time the wonder didn’t really come. Perhaps it was the fact that I was driving in it. It was a slushy, problematic experience even on gloriously sunny days. I don’t think so, though. This time I was only too aware of the effects beyond the picture postcard, seemingly in a way I hadn’t so much previously, perhaps I’ve just reached saturation level with the relentlessly unfolding human global catastrophe we’re all, knowingly or unknowingly, living through. Gaza, Ukraine, refugees trying to escape conflict in every quarter of the world and the hardening of treatment towards the poor and dispossessed. This time the snow reminded me of kids in woods in Northern France, people my parents’ age with no heating and no roof surveying the wreckage of their smashed house in Eastern Ukraine and the bronchial cough of the fella who beds down every night outside M&S in Wellingborough.
I love snow and the childlike wonder it inspires but I’m not a child anymore and nowadays it galvanises me to do what I can, when I can, if I can. Just follow the links – if you can.
Saw the excellent Wayne Graham this last week in a tiny bar, max 15 people what’s going on? And Bonny Light Horseman tonight (I love the fact this track is on mainstream TV) , I am hugely lucky. And the radio show features the smashing new song from Dan Raza, as well as Clover County, Brown Horse, Okkerkil River, Rain Parade, Steve Wynn and more. As ever…
