Tomorrow, Starring Me

I live in Minnesota and have for most of my life, though usually not by choice. I can't leave now unless I either abduct or abandon my children, and I think we can agree that neither of those is really an option.

I complain about it all the time, the passive aggressive mentality: an entire state full of people smiling at each other through clenched teeth. The suburban sprawl: sub-developments as far as the eye can see. But mostly the weather: the muggy summers thick with mosquitoes and deer flies and the long, cold, dark winters. Except for this one thing: I love blizzards.

The forecasters are predicting up to 20" of snow for tomorrow, with wind and bitter cold.

And I. can't. wait.

I look forward to blizzards with the giddy anticipation of a kid at Christmas. If I am snowed in, with nowhere I need to be, I can sit and drink coffee by the fire and watch the snow drift over my windows for hours. Gleefully.

The more dramatic the better. If I can't see my neighbor's house across the street, I do not live in a bungalow in post-war suburb. I live in a log cabin on the unsettled prairie. If can't jump in my car and go buy milk at Super Target, I have to fight my way to the barn and milk a cow. I might even have to help it give birth to a calf that's turned in the womb. No scratch that - I don't want to put my hand in a cow's vagina. Anyway, in a blizzard I am Caroline Ingalls. I am Sacagawea. I am mother fucking Julie Christie in Dr. Zhivago. 

This. This is Minnesota's saving grace in my eyes. Sure, most of the time it is a state made completely of margarine and white bread. But when the winter storms hit, there is drama. There is danger. There is purpose. And I am the heroine of the movie in my mind.