Now that I seem to have an awful lot of spare time on my hands, it seems that I should try and share more about what is going on with me–other than that I’m unemployed and just had an operation. The fact that these two events have been responsible for my excess spare time shall not consume me at the moment. For now, I’ll just take a moment to marvel at the season at hand.
In Central New York, winter is far more than just a season. The old saying about there being just two seasons–snow and road construction–is a reality here. Snow will regularly fall here pretty much from November to April, with occasional surprises on either side of those months. The official start of winter Sunday saw our area in the midst of a long-weekend snow storm that’s dumped in the neighborhood of two and a half feet. I realize that the whole nation has been in the grips of much the same thing. Even in my native Pacific Northwest, I see that they are getting their decade’s allocation of the white stuff all at once–not a pleasant thing for an area that usually suffers when the temperature just goes below freezing.
But snow in my home for the past 16 years is pretty commonplace and fairly typical now, but no less awesome and beautiful. To be honest, I don’t usually find myself overcome with emotion during the actual snowfall, unless you count frustration and misery. But once the blowing, drifting, horizontal downpour and impossibly treacherous travel have all abated, the magnificence of winter’s landscape never seems to bring a smile to my face. Nature takes a terrible toll on so much of our nation and world at various times between hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and forest fires, but snow rarely competes with those natural disasters. Most of the time, it’s just something that requires coping, but I think those parts of the world who’s only adverse weather is snow are fortunate indeed. Because there are times, like today when I snapped a few shots of the our recent storm to send to friends in Tasmania who rarely if ever see such things, that the spectacle of this season was a beauty in and of itself.
I wonder that I am waxing romantic about winter simply because I have nothing more compelling to do right now, but I don’t believe that. As much as the snow can be a major pain in many ways–shoveling, scraping, soaking, freezing and often frightening–it is a part of life here, a life that I have come to grow to love. That is, just as long as I can still pay the tab for the plow guy to keep my driveway clear.
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