Snow, Narnia, and Seasonal Temporality
It is snowing in central North Carolina, which, for those of you unfamiliar with the area, is somewhat rare. We get predictions of “wintery weather” often, but seldom does it amount to much of anything. I’m currently looking out my window, and all I can think about is how beautiful it is. I know that’s not a very masculine thing to say (I mean, one doesn’t typically picture Clint Eastwood or John McClane using the adjective “beautiful”), but it’s the simple truth: There is something so very pure and beautiful about snow. The way it swirls and eddies and suspends before gracing the ground. The way it blankets the earth, hiding all the ugly, bare features of winter.
(… No? Don’t like the Jodi Picoult/Nick Sparks purple prose?)
When it snows, I always begin thinking about C.S Lewis’s Narnia. More specifically, I begin thinking about The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. LLW is the book that made me fall in love with reading, the book that, ultimately, made me want to be a writer; and to this day, with each book I open, I am climbing into my own wardrobe, hoping to find my way back into a world as affecting as was my first trip to Narnia.
Each time I see the snow begin to fall (which, again, is seldom), I invariably begin thinking of the eternal winter that plagued Narnia prior to Aslan’s return. I picture that haunting scene when the White Witch comes upon Edmund, inviting him onto her sleigh and feeding him Turkish Delights (btw, I still don’t know what Turkish Delight is. I always pictured Edmund plucking little Thanksgiving-turkey-bites from a golden, Christmas tin. Still do, I guess).
Ultimately, I begin thinking of how miserable the snow made the citizens of Narnia, of how they pined for sun and summer and flowers. And I begin wondering at how miserable life really would be to never know a world outside of snow and winter.
I suppose what I’m trying to say is that thinking about all of this makes me grateful for the temporality of seasons, for how spring and summer and fall and winter find us and grace us and leave us at just the right moments.
Just another thing for me to be thankful for this holiday season.
Austin, Living in Central Illinois for my entire life( soon 63 years on December 25) I look at snow completely different than you do. Come stay with us awhile this winter.
It is now snowing in Decatur, Illinois
Inquiring minds want to know…so I looked up Turkish Delight – a confection made from starch and sugar often flavored with rosewater, mastic or lemon; rosewater gives it a characteristic pale pink color. It has a soft, jelly-like and sometimes sticky consistency, and is often packaged and eaten in small cubes dusted with icing sugar or copra to prevent clinging. Some types contain small nut pieces, usually pistachio, hazelnut or walnuts.
The candy doesn’t actually sound very delightful, but your post was.
Thanks for the kind words, Kate (and for answering a 20+ year question for me at the same time)!