The Snowstorm : a memory blip

Below is a story, which is included in a 28-page zine booklet download, you can get over on my Patreon if you become a paid member, or you can also purchase the one-time download here. I hope you enjoy this excerpt and also wish you a peaceful in-between and happy new year!

The Snowstorm : a memory blip

I was 19. It was another late night of hanging out with friends and not paying attention to the snow falling outside. When I did attempt to drive home, about 3 or 4 towns over, in my dad’s used white Ford sedan, it got me as far as it could before stalling and dying on an unplowed on-ramp to a snowy highway that felt forgotten. It must have been 2:30 or 3 a.m.

This was 1993, before smartphones, iWatches, or anything. Not even cell phones. To be stranded on a lost road in a storm all alone, I made a quick, perhaps dumb, decision to turn around and walk back to my friend’s house since I was technically still in their town.

I was wearing a long skirt, black buckle-filled engineer-like knee-hi boots, a band shirt with a layered cardigan and a vintage coat, a scarf, and a tiny knit hat that barely kept me warm. My hair was long at the time, so that was an extra layer that helped keep me warm, or gave the illusion of warmth, since I was fudging frozen. The back roads through the dark woods were definitely forgotten by plows. I trudged along, sloppy, through the deep snow drifts as the winds blew more snow over me.

I considered, at one point, going up to a random house and knocking on their door. I thought I was going to die. My memory is blurry about whether I actually did this, because I am not quite sure how the cops found me — whether they were just doing rounds and found me on the run after I abandoned my dead car on the side of the road or if someone saw me and called it in or did I somehow actually make it to the high school pay phone and call 911 myself? It’s all blurry but either way I was happy someone found me.

So many things could have gone so wrong that night. It was one of those moments you think back on and are amazed at how things somehow aligned enough for you to make it out alive and get a ride with the cops back to your friend’s house, then eventually get a tow truck to tow your car back home.

The world felt so far away and quiet in that void of a storm. I pushed through step by step, having a few moments of considering giving up to the elements… Turns out, walking from the highway to the point where the cops found me was a couple of hours. I arrived back at my friend’s house after 4 a.m., then home around 5 after everything cleared with cops, tow trucks, and friends.

I have no clear memory of how my dad reacted to this. He may not even remember at this point. Nights like this — snowy, quiet nights — remind me of that stillness, that quiet terrifying void of whiteness, snow-blind and broke down stranded. I feel so relieved and grateful to be in a warm home now, where I can think of that crazy night.

— me 🙃 ( angie mason )