Softening

From my desert home, I could see the Chocolate Mountains, 50 miles away. Named only for their color, in 15 years of living in our small town, I never ventured near the craggy range. Which was just as well. Arid, entirely mineral, the Chocolate Mountains could stay where they were. And so would I. Besides, I had much better mountains at home, with snow on the peaks most of the year. Well, much of the year. Actually, one peak was invisible from our house, for the mountain range shot up like a wall, its 12,000 foot summit lost behind foothills and ridges. But the other peak sat there like Mount Fuji, conical, steep and capped with white. Once I was old enough to attend summer camp and climb the thing, Mount San Jacinto was revealed to be topped with white granite. The snow was 20 miles away, as the crow flies, if the crow flies with a miniature oxygen tank and has been working out at the local crow gym. That was the white streak atop Mount San Gorgonio, on the opposite side of the pass, the peak I couldn't see from my home. Visible or invisible, it didn't matter. In between these stark geological upthrusts the desert lay out panting with heat stroke. Low, hot and hopeless. The mountains held the miracle of water. And of snow.

In between the mountain ranges, the land rose to about 2000 feet, high enough for the winter snows to gradually creep down the slopes until they reached the desert. This happened every year or so, as I recall. And I recall poorly, for what kid has a sense of years? There were annual events. Christmas and summer vacations, the Fourth of July. But who was keeping track of snow? I only recall waking up a morning here and another there and hearing nothing. The absence of sound derived from the lack of traffic, the absence of cement trucks that drove up and down the paved road by our home. The quarry had given up for the moment. The town had given up, and best of all, the school buses had given up. Which explained why I hadn't gotten up, sleeping in way past wake-up hour. You could see it before you even looked through the windows, such was the profusion of light, brilliant beneath dark gray skies. Snow.

The white had softened its way down the vast ridges, dropping a comforter over the desert flats, chapparal now subsumed in a sparkling sameness. The dirt road before our house had vanished. The desert fields dipped at the edge of our track, and the barbed wire fence delineating the quarry's edge stood black. But aside from the roadside ditch, desert and driveway had become indistinguishable, everything united in cushiony folds of white. My father trudged across the 8 a.m. lawn, leaving egregious footprints behind him. Green peaked out where he had stepped. He had to be stopped. I was dressed in seconds, sliding past my mother and her oatmeal, and making for the side door.

My father said nothing, smiled faintly and continued his trudge. He seemed gently lost. Perhaps he was curious as to what linked the snows of his New York boyhood with this California moment. From inside, the foolishness of his snow tromping seemed obvious. But outside, I could see less cause for concern. The snow was falling, floating from the skies and filling in my father's tracks and my own. The richness of this, the luxury of walking on and grinding down the stuff as it renewed and replaced itself...it was more than one could hope for. I followed my father.

Building a snowman. Having a snowball fight. I knew about these things from previous years. More typically, the snow would melt fast, and one had to hustle the storybook world into reality. My father knew how to roll the snowman, first straight, then sideways. Three frozen globes was all it took, though we paid a terrible price. This action opened green swaths on the lawn, revealing the snowy day as something of a lie. Some years, the snow was so thin that it took minutes to amass a single snowball. Which I promptly threw up my brother, if he was around. It took him minutes to amass another snowball. The back-and-forth of this proceeded at such a pathetic pace that both of us lost interest. The solution involved driving up a road into the foothills where The Bench, a plateau 1000 feet higher, reliably offered real snow.

But not today. Today the real snow was here, on the ground, and my father was inspecting it, wearing old trousers no longer fit for his doctor's office. White had capped the fence posts around our property, filled an empty wagon on the patio, clung irregularly to the privet hedges. My father, hands clasped behind his back, made a raspy whistling sound. This signaled a contemplative lightness. It was a good sign, suggestive of pastimes and possibilities. No school. No office. I could see my mother at work in the kitchen. She had no interest in being outside on cold days. Something commanded her attention on the kitchen. Soup. I was sure she was making soup.

On the back lawn, my brother had something major under way with the family dog. Frosty, already off-white, raced in pursuit of a piece of greasewood. My brother threw this up and down the snowy lawn, the dog turning and skidding to grab the stick. I envied everything about my sibling. Somehow he had broken free enough to learn how to throw a softball, then a hardball and now this random piece of desert wood. Frosty scrambled over the snow, involuntarily skating sideways, unconcerned by the slippery disorientation. He caught the stick, returned it, and now I insisted on having a throw. My brother was littler, and it was embarrassing to make my under arm pitch in his presence. He didn't understand that my parents' marriage was coming apart, and we had important adult work to do. So I was staying close by my father. My brother was learning baseball.

Frosty caught my stick, fell, tumbled onto his back, and threw up snow like a plow. My brother laughed, my father smiled and I tried to understand. It was funny, our dog's effort in the snow. He was stumbling and confused and delighted. It was just another day. This one had dawned crunchy, white and slippery, but was otherwise as before, except for the addition of humans. Everyone was home. This was home. My father was laughing. My brother and I weren't fighting. On the side steps leading to my parents' bedroom, my mother appeared with my sister. Susie wore a sweater and a puffy jacket, clung hesitantly to the wrought iron railing and watched. She headed down the steps, my mother behind. My father lifted her in the air. For once, I wasn't consumed with jealousy. It was such an odd day, after all. My mother stood outside in her house dress, unconcerned by the cold. She folded her arms and said that she had seen some strange things, but this.... Hang on, she said to my father. Moments later she returned with a movie camera. My father squinted into the ratcheting thing while my brother threw sticks to Frosty. The camera whirred, the snow fell, and my mother stood and beamed.

She seemed to be enjoying herself. The edge to her comments, the nervous rasp of her laughter, all had been absorbed by the white softness. Perhaps it would snow again. Something like this could happen, unplanned. It just came from the sky. Nothing was in its place. Nothing was in its mood. My parents were standing together, outside, as though they were happy together. No one was yelling, and no one was crying, and there seemed nothing but the prospect of a day like this. I could smell the scent of bubbling celery and onions from my mother's soup. We would eat it later, bowls steaming, the kitchen lit by gray light. All of us would eat together, it seemed, all five. There had been a softening.