Martin Spitznagel Pianist. Composer. Writer. Filmmaker.

The Great Pipe Nothing

The entire reason I came to Pittsburgh this weekend was to perform in a theater organ concert with Bryan Wright and the Boilermaker Jazz Band. That was before anyone knew Pittsburgh was about to get 24 inches of snow.

Needless to say, my concert got canceled faster than a Joss Whedon series on FOX.

I was really looking forward to it, too. I was nervous – I’m not a theater organist and was about to pretend to be in front of hundreds of people – but I was also excited, the same kind of excited I get every time a new “Star Wars” project is announced: blind hope that it’s going to be awesome, and stark terror that it’s going to be terrible.

But after the sting of that passed, and the calls were made to family and friends that we wouldn’t be getting together after all, and after a day spent shoveling hundreds of pounds of snow out of Mom’s driveway, not to mention rescuing a few stranded motorists unlucky enough not to have new tires on their car (and who were, I assure you, surprised to see someone with Virginia license plates so deft with a shovel), I was shocked to find myself so energized at 11 PM that I had to go for a walk in the snow-blanketed neighborhood to get myself anywhere near ready to sleep.

The last snow I can remember like this was 17 years ago, in 1993. I was 10. Pittsburghers call it the “Blizzard of ‘93,” which isn’t quite as awesome a name as DC’s “Knickerbocker Storm of 1922” but I still love it. I want to call this most recent snow the “Blizzard of Ought-Ten,” which, sadly, makes no sense. We are all out of oughts.

I accept that I am in the minority of Pittsburghers and Virginians because I love snow. I heart snow. If snow was a girl in my grade school, I would pass it notes and have dreams about it.

I don’t just love snow, I crave it. The silence of snow is profound. The silence of snow is literal – it makes everything quieter because it absorbs sound waves – but it’s also metaphorical. And you know how I loves me some metaphor.

My mom’s house, where Jess and I ended up getting stranded last night (if by “stranded” we mean “stuck in a comfy bed with hot popcorn and freshly made hot chocolate while watching the snow fall and trading stories”), lost power because of all the snow. This meant no internet, no phones, no TV, and no heat all day today.

The first three of these delighted me. I don’t think people realize how much stress our connected, wireless, broadband lives put on us. I spend a huge portion of every day keeping up on the news, checking Facebook, working, etc., and the fact that I literally could not get onto the Internet no matter what today was not frustrating, it was a huge relief. All the obligations of the Internet, the distractions and the noise and the cacophony of pixels bearing down on your eyes as you struggle to connect to an intangible world of information and experience, was suddenly, mercifully, gone.

Now, I’m glad to have it back. I’m not Amish. I like the power of technology, even if it comes at the cost of silence. And we got tired of being cold and came to stay with Jessie’s family, who has power and, more importantly, heat.

But the snowfall gave me a wonderful period of silence today, of simplicity. As I was shoveling, kids were riding down the middle of the street on their snowboards and sleds. Couples were out walking. Cars were only occasional occurrences and, when they did come, felt like an invasion and the driver knew it, his face apologetic as he passed by. Not to overdo it, but it really was kind of idyllic. I think that’s why I get so excited about snow. It comes and extends its flakes and invites you to slow down, stop feeling all this pressure to do, and just focus on the important things like hot chocolate and sled-riding and time with the people you care about.

I am convinced that people in DC, whose city Marion Barry decreed was “not a snow town,” are secretly thrilled by snow – regardless of the amount – because it’s the perfect excuse to stop being so… so… DC, so obsessed with doing and accomplishing and achieving. My friend and former co-worker once told me that DC’s reaction to two inches of snow and twenty inches of snow was exactly the same, and I think my theory proves why. People are hungry for an excuse to be silent, free of their modern obligations, and the more snow you get, the longer the silence can last.

On my walk tonight, accompanied only by the sound of crystals crunching under the treads of my shoes, I looked up through snow-covered branches at a winter star shining, breathing the air of my hometown, minutes from the house I called home for 15 years, and I felt good about being 27. I felt good about being home. I felt grounded and grateful. I felt like I had traded youth for a real understanding of how good a good day was, and I liked me a lot in that moment.

I’m sure, as the snow is cleared and as it melts, the weight of my world will feel a little heavier. But for today, nestled under blankets next to my wife and sipping hot chocolate and moving and shoveling and hanging socks to dry and putting pictures in albums and playing cards and eating dinner with friends and family, I felt as light as a snowflake drifting, quiet, to the ground.