Some say snow is like rain and call it redemption when it falls. But where I live, high in the Rocky Mountains, in an old mining town turned ski resort called Telluride, snow is another word for celebration.
Up here, we call it white gold. And so it was not surprising when, as the news began to list the states that voted for Barack Obama, a light snow began to tumble from the sky.
Watching snow fall in a ski town in November is like watching presents pile under a Christmas tree. The anticipation is exactly the same.
Asking “how much will fall?” is the same as guessing about the contents of the big red box at the back of the tree. Snow means everyone in town is closer to making those cherished turns on the hill.
For Telluride businesses, snow means the tourists just might come back, flash their glossy green bills, and awaken the town from its interminable off-season. And for the mountains, snow means they’re almost home. Winter is when those jagged peaks are happiest.
The snow on Tuesday night swirled and barely stuck when the first states were announced to be blue. But as the list grew, so too did the intensity of the storm. Pennsylvania and Ohio fell, and the snow fell faster.
Next, New Mexico and Colorado were called. My husband, two-year old daughter, and I stepped outside. The snow showered our heads like confetti. Hope was beginning to accumulate in our hearts as fast as the snow was around our boots.
By the time they announced that the West Coast was blue, Telluride looked like a different place. Snow shrouded our view of the moon and dripped from the boughs of the pine trees.
Our mountain town was an isolated hamlet again, a place where on a night like this, the lights on Main Street frequently flicker out, and the traffic can slow to a car an hour.
With the world this dark and quiet, we could have been at any time in history. If fact, with it this still, we could imagine what Telluride was like 150 years ago, when gold was first discovered here and when, a thousand whistle stops away, black men and women worked as slaves in the cotton fields.
Except that when the applause spilled out into the street, and people started lobbing snowballs at each other with joy, we could be at no other point in history. It could only be November 4, 2008.
A day that will be forever remembered as the day America’s first black president was elected. It could only be on a snowy night in Telluride with champagne powder dusting our cheeks, and the world tilting for a moment towards perfection that we learn such news.
White gold fell for Barack Obama in Telluride on election night. Perhaps it’s time for us to start believing in snow’s power for redemption as well as celebration.
Emily Brendler Shoff writes a weekly column for the Telluride Daily Planet.
