We are a people conditioned to be skeptical over weather reports and other people’s cookin’. Our hurricane prep consists of waitin’ and seein’, in that order. The cone of uncertainty is as reliable as the syrup-to-carbonation ratio at Circle K. It’s always a little off.
So when the weather folks started talking about snow, we all shrugged it off to a degree. Don’t get me wrong, people emptied Ace of space heaters and Publix of bread and milk, but did we believe it deep down? Not really.
I thought the most we’d get was a spit of sleet like we got over 10 years ago. Y’all remember that? We were sliding around the sidewalk on Boogie Boards and thought we’d done something.
Never could we have imagined a show like this. And man it was something.
At noon on Tuesday, my daughter and I drove around Gulf Breeze just as the snow began to fall. “It’s happening!” I said to a man outside of Wal-Mart. He smiled and shared in my excitement.
We drove through the lot behind Tacos Rock and watched all the employees outside, laughing, smiling, and waving as we drove by. All of us kids in a candy shop delighting at the tiny, unexpected miracles falling from the sky.
Within just a few hours, car parked at home, we set out on foot for a hike around Gulf Breeze proper. We’re lucky that we had proper cold-weather attire. Ever the Scouts, always prepared. We walked in driving snow from the center of the town past the rec center and City Hall. We chatted and reveled in the oddity and beauty of the moment.
My daughter kept saying, “Is this real?” which captured the sentiment we all felt at some point over the last few days.
We rounded a corner across from the high school and encountered a family sledding on a foam Boogie Board, intended for the waves. They were kind enough to let my daughter sled and they decided to join us to our destination: the Pensacola Beach sign. We hopped on their golf cart and off we went. I thanked them for the ride and they said, “This is what it’s about.”
“This” means being in the moment, stopping to say hello, making new friends, and sharing an adventure.
We danced in front of the sign, sledded down the backslope of the overpass, and knew we’d just witnessed history together. I thought of the photo of the women and children from the 1800s playing in the Pensacola snow and wondered if someday my great-great-grandchildren would look at these pictures of us in the same way.
We hopped back on the cart and headed for home, weaving through snowbanks behind the schools. When we made it to Fairpoint Drive, we hopped off for the walk back home. Not long after a man operating a snowplow blasted through yelling “Woooooo-hooooooo!” The little Floridian boy deep inside of him is “playing” in the snow.
We took more pictures and made a few more friends before making it back to the house. Then we spent the next day meeting more neighbors and making memories we’d cherish forever. Snowmen were made, snowballs were thrown, icicles snapped, snow cream tasted, and snowhills surfed.
For a brief moment, it felt like 1986. We were all kids again, playing outside in the magical snowglobe of our beachside paradise, lingering outside with the neighbors, with a pot of homemade soup simmering on the stove.
Somebody from a colder climate was disappointed in how everything here shuts down. “Where I come from,” she said, before disparaging the ways of our collective response, “they would’ve had salt trucks and snowplows prepping the roads.”
I know there are a lot of people that need access to safe roads and I hate it for small businesses that count on every single open day.
But when I am 80 and looking back, hiking those 3 miles in the snow with a daughter who only has one foot left in the door of her childhood home, will be one of the most important memories of our life.
The next time something unexpected happens, something once in a lifetime…be all in. And when life gets stressful or feels like too much, remember…it may only snow here once in a lifetime, but we always have a playground right in our back yard and those same neighbors still live next door.
With a little intention, we can always make life magical. Perhaps just a little more so when it snows at the beach.
