Stopping By Woods: A Winter Remembrance

When I was nine years old my new stepfather, my mother, and I loaded up a red, Ford pick-up truck with all our worldly possessions and left cold & frosty Minnesota for the warmer, balmier climes of Charleston, South Carolina. My whole world or rather my concept of it at the time, was left back in Minnesota, specifically the NW corner near a town called Bemidji. My large extended family consisting entirely of solid Scandinavian heritage had lived for several generations on farms in the surrounding countryside. Nobody ever left, at least not for long. That’s what I thought.

I had no way of knowing how unrecognizable the weather was going to be in Charleston. Sure I had been told I was moving to a place that stayed warm all year round, but what did that really mean? I couldn’t comprehend that we were moving to a place where it didn’t snow.

We arrived in the fall, and when Halloween rolled around I was ecstatic to discover that I didn’t have to squeeze my costume on over a snowsuit. But, when Thanksgiving arrived and it was still hot out I got worried. Everything was all screwy, it felt like Thanksgiving in July. Imagine my distress when Christmas came and went with nary a snowflake in the sky, or even a good freeze that made the dew on the grass all crunchy and fun to walk on. You see, I was a kid who loved the snow, loved mittens & funny caps with pompoms on top, loved seeing my breathe in the air on a cold day, and most of all loved to watch snow as it fell from the sky in a quiet mesmerizing dance covering everything in cool, clean whiteness.

I got depressed. So did my parents. We took a weekend trip to the Smoky Mountains to look at the snow, it was beautiful, but it wasn’t like “home” in Minnesota.

I was in the fourth grade that winter. I had adjusted well to my new school and had made some new friends. Oddly enough they all thought I talked funny. Hah! They were the ones who talked funny – Uffdah ya. Anyway, that January my teacher gave our class an assignment. We were told to memorize and individually recite Robert Frost’s poem, “Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening.” WHAT !?! I had to memorize some stupid, old, boring poem and say it in front of my friends? Friends who were always making me feel different because of the way I talked? I dragged myself home and dramatically complained to my parents over how unfair life was. (I was good at that! Still am.)

This was before I actually read the poem, though. When I did read “Stopping By The Woods On A Snowy Evening” for the first time, I was immediately reminded of my life in Minnesota. I remembered the late night drives to my grandparent’s farm on winter nights…I remembered being mesmerized by the sight of the snow fluttering down from an inky, black sky, and then suddenly, being lit up brightly like little stars by our car’s headlights as we sailed through them on down the road… I remembered the birch trees looking so very white under their blankets of snow.

I loved the poem. I thought Robert Frost was a genius. Over and over I practiced it. In my minds eye, I saw the beloved winter landscape before me, I saw the woods fill up with snow, felt sad regret when I said, “But, I have promises to keep…” I can assure you, that my recitation was the most dramatic & deeply felt one in the class that year.

I never stopped missing Minnesota winters, despite the fact that they can indeed get ruthlessly cold. Someday, somehow I was going to move back.

Next up: My Alabama born & raised husband must really love me, because he let me talk him into moving to Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1988.