A Black And White World
It is not black and white photography. It is a black and white world.
North Carolina is funny about snow. They actually close the schools here because “it might snow”. Not “it has snowed”, not “it is snowing”, but only “it might snow”.
I understand why, now, having lived here for a decade: they have no idea how to deal with this stuff. I once spent more than seven hours trying to get home from work after an ice storm. Not just me, but everyone in Raleigh who left work that day did not get home until after midnight. Kids on school buses, moms trying to get home from the grocery, everyone, stranded on static, ice-locked city streets without food or bathroom for hours and hours.
The whole place just goes crazy.
This, by the way, was real:
This is how Raleigh reacts to one or two inches of snow. Not just cars all over the road, not just people stranded for hours, but also, bursting into flames.
This is why they close the schools now when it might snow.
We were projected to get nine inches last weekend. We didn’t get nine inches, more like an inch-and-a-half plus a light glazing of ice, but still, more than enough to close the city for four days.
Tuesday it finally broke above freezing and the snow started to melt. Except “started to melt” does not really describe it. Not here, not in the land of heat and humidity, snow doesn’t just melt here. It is more accurate to say that all of the snow attempted to jump up into the sky and evaporate all at once.
The whole world, painted in black and white, coated with a fog so deep you could taste it.
By Tuesday night it was all gone.
Living in the South is so weird sometimes.
