Snow globes. A viral pandemic spreading to practically every corner of the world, claiming countless lives and disrupting the nation’s economy. How do you connect one with the other? 

To this day, I can still envision my mom receiving yet another globe, watching her eyes fill with tears, shaking it wildly, winding it like a precision timepiece to get the music going, and waiting ever so patiently for all the snow to fall. 

I must thank Mom and her wide assortment of snow globes. Her precious pieces of memorabilia are proudly displayed on several shelves of her specially designed curio cabinet. Watching Mom receive a gift, unwrapping what will probably turn out to be yet another snow globe, is sort of like selecting that last piece of candy in the heart-shaped box on Valentine’s Day: you never know what flavor you’ll end up with. 

Most played a catchy music box tune I couldn’t quite figure out, but the twinkling melody of upbeat notes sounded pleasing nonetheless. The ornate exterior with a splash of bright colors was just as picturesque as the inside, usually depicting a place visited on someone’s vacation or a magical and mystical fairy tale scene. Of course, once you shook it up a zillion pieces of “something” floated haphazardly around, falling in a dance-like trance to the tune you wound up. If you got really fancy, you could buy a battery-operated model with all the lights, bells, and whistles. But where’s the fun in that? Give me the ol’ fashioned wind-ups to get Mom smiling. 

The music doesn’t play forever, though. Soon, what may have sounded like “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” stops, the faux snow lies dormant on the ground, and the Hansel- and Gretel-like village goes back to normal. 

Life is a little like Mom’s snow globes. The pandemic has caused the world to be shaken up and turned upside-down. The song, akin to our future, has yet to be figured out. The scattered snow not yet settled on the ground represents all the pieces of uncertainty this crisis has created in our lives and within the lives of those around us, clouding our vision from hope. 

We question if we’ll be able to feed our families or if we’ll have a job tomorrow, all with doubt raining down around us. We’re left feeling trapped in a place we can’t seem to free ourselves from. 

Yet, in time, you snap your fingers because you suddenly recognize the song being played. The snow settles. The scene from whence we started shifts back into focus. Our neat little world is made whole once more. With a little patience, things will become clear again. 

Feeling curious, I decided to look back on some pictures from last Christmas. One photo is of Mom. Another is of Dad, dressed in his cherry tomato red t-shirt, emblazoned with Rudolph’s head on the front. They are each standing beside Mom’s Christmas table. Just over each of their shoulders stood Mom’s cabinet, a sentinel towering over my loved ones, housing shelf after shelf of snow globes. 

I guess Mom is right, yet again. Everything will be okay. Just have patience and give things time to settle. 

X

Republish this article

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Prison Journalism Project is happy to share our writers and reporters’ stories with your print and online audiences. You are free to republish them under a Creative Commons license unless otherwise noted on the page. You can use the URL or copy and paste the story into your CMS.

Here are our ground rules:

• You must credit Prison Journalism Project. In the byline, we prefer “[Author Name], Prison Journalism Project.” At the top of the text of your story, please include a line that says: “This story was originally published by Prison Journalism Project” and include a link to the article.
• No republishing of photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission. Please contact inquiries@prisonjournalismproject.org.
• No editing the content, including the headline, except to reflect changes in time, location and editorial style. For example, changing, “today” to “last week,” or San Quentin to San Quentin, California. You can also make minor revisions for style or headline size, and you can trim stories for space. You must also retain all original hyperlinks, including links to the Prison Journalism Project newsletters.
• No translation of our stories into another language without specific permission. Please contact inquiries@prisonjournalismproject.org.
• No selling ads against our stories, but you can publish it on a page with ads that you’ve already sold.
• No reselling or syndicating our stories, including on platforms or apps like Apple News or Google News. You also can’t republish our work automatically or all at once. Please select them individually.
• No scraping our website or using our stories to populate websites designed to improve search rankings or gain revenue from network-based advertisements.
• Any site our stories appear on must have a prominent and effective way to contact you.
• If we send you a request to remove our story, you must do so immediately.
• If you share republished stories on social media, please tag Prison Journalism Project. We have official accounts on Twitter (@prisonjourn), Facebook (@prisonjournalism), Instagram (@prisonjournalism) and Linked In.
• Let us know when you share the story. Send us a note, so we can keep track.

A Little Snow Must Fall

by Gervasio “Julio” Torres, Jr., Prison Journalism Project
May 25, 2021

<h1>A Little Snow Must Fall</h1> <p class="byline">by Gervasio “Julio” Torres, Jr., Prison Journalism Project <br />May 25, 2021</p> <p>Snow globes. A viral pandemic spreading to practically every corner of the world, claiming countless lives and disrupting the nation’s economy. How do you connect one with the other?&nbsp;</p> <p>To this day, I can still envision my mom receiving yet another globe, watching her eyes fill with tears, shaking it wildly, winding it like a precision timepiece to get the music going, and waiting ever so patiently for all the snow to fall.&nbsp;</p> <p>I must thank Mom and her wide assortment of snow globes. Her precious pieces of memorabilia are proudly displayed on several shelves of her specially designed curio cabinet. Watching Mom receive a gift, unwrapping what will probably turn out to be yet another snow globe, is sort of like selecting that last piece of candy in the heart-shaped box on Valentine’s Day: you never know what flavor you’ll end up with.&nbsp;</p> <p>Most played a catchy music box tune I couldn’t quite figure out, but the twinkling melody of upbeat notes sounded pleasing nonetheless. The ornate exterior with a splash of bright colors was just as picturesque as the inside, usually depicting a place visited on someone’s vacation or a magical and mystical fairy tale scene. Of course, once you shook it up a zillion pieces of “something” floated haphazardly around, falling in a dance-like trance to the tune you wound up. If you got really fancy, you could buy a battery-operated model with all the lights, bells, and whistles. But where’s the fun in that? Give me the ol’ fashioned wind-ups to get Mom smiling.&nbsp;</p> <p>The music doesn’t play forever, though. Soon, what may have sounded like “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” stops, the faux snow lies dormant on the ground, and the Hansel- and Gretel-like village goes back to normal.&nbsp;</p> <p>Life is a little like Mom’s snow globes. The pandemic has caused the world to be shaken up and turned upside-down. The song, akin to our future, has yet to be figured out. The scattered snow not yet settled on the ground represents all the pieces of uncertainty this crisis has created in our lives and within the lives of those around us, clouding our vision from hope.&nbsp;</p> <p>We question if we’ll be able to feed our families or if we’ll have a job tomorrow, all with doubt raining down around us. We’re left feeling trapped in a place we can’t seem to free ourselves from.&nbsp;</p> <p>Yet, in time, you snap your fingers because you suddenly recognize the song being played. The snow settles. The scene from whence we started shifts back into focus. Our neat little world is made whole once more. With a little patience, things will become clear again.&nbsp;</p> <p>Feeling curious, I decided to look back on some pictures from last Christmas. One photo is of Mom. Another is of Dad, dressed in his cherry tomato red t-shirt, emblazoned with Rudolph’s head on the front. They are each standing beside Mom’s Christmas table. Just over each of their shoulders stood Mom’s cabinet, a sentinel towering over my loved ones, housing shelf after shelf of snow globes.&nbsp;</p> <p>I guess Mom is right, yet again. Everything will be okay. Just have patience and give things time to settle.&nbsp;</p> <p>This <a target="_blank" href="https://prisonjournalismproject.org/2021/05/25/a-little-snow-must-fall-1/">article</a> first appeared on <a target="_blank" href="https://prisonjournalismproject.org">Prison Journalism Project</a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.<img src="https://i1.wp.com/prisonjournalismproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/cropped-PJP-favicon-2.png?fit=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1" style="width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;"><img id="republication-tracker-tool-source" src="https://prisonjournalismproject.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=1343&ga=" style="width:1px;height:1px;"></p>

1