The fleeting joy of Southern snow

Nature is everywhere, duh

In these first few weeks of 2025, my interest in social media has been mostly muted. Blame violence, or wildfires, or contentious politics; whatever the cause, I’ve got little need for hot takes or self-congratulation.

So my instinct has been to retreat toward the slow-moving and tangible. Give me a book. Send me outside, even into cold air, onto frozen ground.

Last week, it’s like nature heard my plea.

It snowed here in New Orleans, as I’m sure you know, a lot—nearly a foot of snow in places. And that material fact changed my Instagram feed, filling it to the brim with joy. And this was not the braggart joy of a fancy vacation, but the humble delight of remembering that we live in a wonderland. The cars were parked, the stores were closed, and all you had to do, if you lived here was step into your backyard, and suddenly you were in nature. It’s one of my beliefs that we’re always entangled in nature, but it’s easier to remember that when it’s piled up there for you to roll around in.

As the sun set, I remember feeling so glad to have gotten to tromp through the neighborhood in the likely record-breaking snowfall, and then sad to think that I may never see such a scene again—had I used my snow day well enough?—and then glad to have gotten to see it at all.

I went back out this morning, and the snow is mostly gone now, but I noticed the birdsong that, until recently, had faded into the familiar background.

I’ve looked at a lot of satellite images of the Lower Mississippi—but none like this (NASA)

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Southander Spotlight

jamescollier

A post shared by @jamescollier

One of my favorite shots of snowbound New Orleans is this drone aerial from friend-of-Southlands (and my personal fishing guru) James Collier. Give him a follow and subscribe to his newsletter, The Boil Advisory.

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