(Image source: Spokesman-Review)Snow is a natural phenomenon, not a cultural one, right? Science rather than cultural studies. Still, cultural studies is interested in how people interpret their world, and all anyone is talking about here lately is the snow. It's been not only the top story, but the top three stories, in the local newspaper for more than two weeks now. And SFCC classes, which were supposed to begin today, have been postponed due to snowy weather. So...
A few observations: the unusual amount of snow this winter seems to represent two main things: the presence of community and the absence of context.
First, community: as others have observed, this season has been all about working together as a community. Very old-school and uplifting: neighbors helping neighbors, people digging or pushing out random strangers' cars, etc. I've talked more to my neighbors in the last three weeks than in the previous six months in which I've lived here; everybody's outside shoveling snow instead of inside watching TV. It's kind of nostalgic; there's almost a pre-modern feel to this existence. (Setting aside the occasional case of someone threatening to shoot snow plot drivers, or actually shooting at them.)
The postmodern part, on the other hand, is the sense of contextlessness that so much snow seems to create. In part, this is just a matter of not knowing how to interpret this natural phenonomen: what's a lot? People in North Dakota or Alaska might find Spokane's snow-fueled discombobulation kind of amusing, whereas people in Southern California, or even across the state in Seattle, might freak out after about an inch on the ground. I've noticed that the current Spokane total of about 60 inches doesn't sound nearly as bad as it does when expressed as "five feet" of snow.
Something over 20 roofs (mostly of commercial buildings) have collapsed due to snow weight in Spokane so far. Should I be worried about my home's roof (or the roofs of the places where I shop and work)? Presumably, there's a right answer, but I don't have access to it; the various news reports basically say "it just depends." What will happen tomorrow? Of course, nobody knows for sure, but our collective attempts to impose understanding on confusing data sometimes just add to the confusion: the other day, for example, the newspaper ran a story on the weather and a weather forecast, each of which put forward completely contradictory predictions. How to feel about all this is, simply put, confusing.
Then too, the blanketing of the landscape in snowy white only adds to the sense of contextlessness. In Playing in the Dark, Toni Morrison discusses the frequent trope in American literature of an "impenetrable whiteness" (which she argues is connected to white Americans' encounters with blackness). Discussing Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, she describes Poe's treatment of "the visualized but somehow closed and unknowable white form that rises from the mists at the end of the journey" (32). Encompassing whiteness is symbolically powerful, and more than a little scary.
Think of this: a tiny, apparently weightless snowflake landed on a roof. Joined by millions of its fellows, the snowflake eventually helped create enough weight to collapse that roof. This has happened more than twenty times in the last twenty days. Tomorrow, presumably, it is about to happen again. And all there is to do is wait, and wonder.
(I'm ready for spring.)
