First Snow

I'm not from one of those cultures that has a hundred words for snow. We're lucky to have just the one, and that mostly employed to describe something distant and abstract, like unicorns or self-replicating machine elves (which might be more common in Southern California, depending on one's chemical disposition at any given moment). This morning's "light flurries" reminded me of nothing so much as the first ash-fall of the fire season - albeit with the temperature all wrong - and I understood thereby the aspect of nostalgia associated with this strange substance.

Native Istanbulites seem, like myself, to be both eager to see some, and unprepared to describe in detail this unusual phenomenon which, just a mile or two in any direction away from the city's ubiquitous water, is socking in friends and family for a long white winter. I am preparing therefore, first in English and later to translate for my fellows, a few terms of description to refine our perception and understanding of this subtlety called "snow."

There is naso, the snow that gets up in one's nose immediately upon opening the front door. Startling, but seems to disappear before any danger of asphyxiation. Its insidious cousin the windy co-worker seems ever to be right in one's face, no matter which direction one turns.

There is jellice, the snow that falls upon the impenetrable layer of jellyfish on the surface of the Bosporus. You'd think it would kill them but they only seem annoyed. It is said that if one attempts to lick fresh jellice one's tongue will stick to it until a warmer season, but this is partly "urban myth"; one would stick anyway (an experiment not worth repeating).

There is rap-snee, which only accumulates in the bad haircuts of the fashionably young; the surgeon general, which makes a cigarette even less pleasant than usual; and the reminder, a slow moving snow that engenders frequent passing thoughts that one should've worn gloves, brought that hat, bought better shoes despite the cost, or - if one has got all those thing with - that one should have peed before bundling up.

There is the morgan-stanley, which dissolves houses in minutes (see photo above). There is the nearly invisible paloma loca that drives mourning doves to shelter among vaguely menacing berries (see photo here).

Yes, it is a bold new adventure, identifying snow, and this is only the first day we've had any! Fortunately the Turks do have a highly detailed vocabulary for describing hot tea - the refuge to which I now abandon thee, gentle reader. Thanks again for visiting... more in a few days, for good or ill. Coming soon: a new apartment!