I traveled to my family in Minnesota on Tuesday wishing for snow. There were flurries on my drive from the airport to my parent’s house in Medford. The kind where they feel like they’re flying at me, and sometimes I feel like I’m traveling in space flying against stars and not ice. Then, on Thursday, a full serving of snow—Minnesota style. This meant everyone continued with their days. Going to appointments, jobs, some schools closed, and evening events were cancelled. Belinda Jensen, a goddess weather lady on Kare 11, predicted maybe three inches for our area, when we really got six or seven. In this house, we love Belinda, regardless of her meteorology talent. Snow is hard to predict.
I feel so lucky. I wished for snow and now I am writing this staring out the window of my parent’s house watching the sun sparkle on the banks. There is a stereotype about Minnesotans always talking about the weather. In this state, snow and weather are almost spiritual. Growing up, I prayed for it to close school. When it did, my family performed the ritual of shoveling—me on the porch and walkway, Jordan on the sidewalks, my mother tackling the driveway, and we all came together to break up the thick chunks between the driveway and the road. I love severe weather, but especially snowstorms, where it feels like I have to be careful and intentional about how I move through my day.
I noticed, while writing a novel this fall, that snow and severity play a role in my creative work. I found myself asking, what are the natural ways things get out of hand?
I discovered my answer through blizzards. The Halloween snowstorm of 1991, which lasted for up to five days and accumulated around 38 inches in some parts of the state. A natural chaos occurring at the wrong time. Though I wasn’t alive for it, I grew up with the lore. The blizzard in December 2010 breaking the roof of the Metrodome. Watching video clips of the collapse on the news.
And I’ll be completely honest, my favorite radio station, The Current, sounds better when it’s dark and there’s snow on the ground. Minnesota needs snow otherwise it is brown and ugly outside. A guaranteed natural beauty.
I saw a post on social media on Tuesday morning. It said globally, and especially in the United States, we will start seeing less white Christmases, and less snow in general. This is of course due to an abundance greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, and the inevitability of climate change. I love severity, but not the severity of climate change. Last year, the snow melted, and the temperature was around forty or fifty degrees, which meant I could walk around comfortably without my face freezing, but it wasn’t my ideal winter day. For a while, maybe white Christmases will happen every other year, and then in another while, maybe cease all together.
As a Minnesotan (now Texan) who loves snow, and an artist who calls upon it for inspiration, I am worried there will be fewer moments in my life where I get to experience the beauty of it. But I must live with the hard truth. I will end up putting snow into stories and spend hours thinking about it rather than watching it fall in real time.
I don’t want to leave you with a somber note. Tomorrow will be a snow-filled solstice. The temperatures won’t rise to melt all the snow by Christmas Day. I will enjoy it while I can. Today I plan to get lost in it, exhausted by it.
As 2024 comes to a close, I’d like to share the books I’ve read and enjoyed this year.
The year started strong with the two Melissas who control my heart and mind in the literary world. I finished was Milk Fed by Melissa Broder and Girlhood by Melissa Febos. 2023 was the year of Febos. I read her entire collection and 2024 became a continuation of my love of Broder’s work, including Death Valley.
People openly mocked me for reading in the sauna. The world hates intellectualism. Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel W. Moniz was full of compelling language. This was one of the books I brought into the sauna, and gym bros called me a nerd, but I think it’s important to be swole and smart.
There was an era in early January, where I came home and played Mario Kart on Nintendo Switch with George and read The Kiss by Kathryn Harrison in three days.
Much of spring was dedicated Blake Butler’s Molly. The nonfiction circles I knew of were rocked by this book. The press around it questioned if authors should write about their loved ones, and as a result share their secrets. You can reach out to me directly to hear my opinion on the subject.
2023 ignited my practice of listening to books and I carried that into 2024 with Be Brief and Tell Them Everything by Brad Listi. On a road trip to Minnesota and back, I indulged in Miranda July’s All Fours. Big Swiss by Jen Beagin. Bad Sex by Clancy Martin. And Patti Smith’s memoir Just Kids. I started Burnout, but never finished because I understood quickly, I had to sweat to complete my stress cycles.
There was a long time (the entire summer?) where I read Chronology of Water. I took this one in at a slow pace. I wanted to take it all in. 100 Swims by Hurley Winkler, a beautiful self-created zine. I read some of the Sluts anthology and will continue reading this in 2025.
I read as many books as I could in the last couple months. Negative Space by Lilly Dancyger. A master class in older and younger narrators in nonfiction. Thirst for Salt by Madelaine Lucas. Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan.
But I need to take a moment to talk about how much I loved Worry by Alexandra Tanner. This book was candy. I just wanted to nam nam nam on it all day. I cried while laughing and laughed while crying. This book is so alive. It is a life force. One of the characters questions if art is dead. It is absolutely not dead.
I’m drifting to the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025 with Didion & Babitz by Lili Anolik.
My plan for 2025 is to read all of my “to be read” pile on my shelves. I tend to buy books, inherit them, and never read them. This will all change in the new year. More on that reading list in the new year.