Snowglobe 1

My nine year old niece collects snow globes, which I think as far as collections go, is a pretty awesome one. Snow globes are uniformly loved. Tip 'em over, shake 'em up, and some magical beautiful place appears, a miniature version of perfection under snow, a fairy tale in glycerin and under glass. Plus, every gift store in the world sells some version of a snow globe, making her hobby much easier had, than, say, rare coins or fiesta ware, which I don't think most nine year olds are into, but whatever.

This weekend, the Small Town looked snowglobe-ish -- especially this morning, when the Town Criers (aka: the Short Drunk People) alerted us to the season's first flakes. The GFYO said it was "raining snow" and I didn't correct him, because I liked the phrase and also because it was the nicest kind of snow: windshield wipers could handle it, shovels could stay hidden. It was the painted kind of snow that covers up all the dirt and drudgery of the Fall and makes the leafless trees look less lonely and more like sculpture in the sky. It's the best kind, because it was the first one.

I sent some photos of the weekend in the Small Town to my friend who lives in a snowless, concrete city and I started to regret it almost instantly. Every.single.one seemed sweeter than the next. It irked me, even before she got a little jealous; it irked me, because even though I knew she knew what I was doing (sharing, wishing she were here), all of the pictures seemed too pretty and too cute and like some anonymous postcard of quaintness, a snow globe of sorts, something under glass and not quite real. 

All small towns are pretty, well, pretty much the same. My Small Town isn't much different, though it looks better sometimes, especially now, especially in pictures, but it suffers like all the rest. Just like some sparkling cities (some on Hills, some below the Mason-Dixon, some before and beyond the Rocky Mountains), my Small Town has fault lines that threaten to shake everything up. There is competitiveness and loneliness and greediness and unkindness that live in between everything well-intentioned and decent and good and lovely. 

Beauty on the outside does not mean there is not ugliness underneath, just as ugly on the outside can beget the most amazingly beautiful things inside. I've seen that, actually, with my own eyes.

More. Later. Until then this song I have been waiting for: