Happy Valentine's Day! We're all rather happy around here - the temperature is moderating and the snow pack is melting. Everyone's walking with a lighter step, wearing less clothing, faces have lost that pinched look, and there seems to be a more casual approach to driving. The last may be a bit premature. Yes, we can all stop white-knuckling it, but the roads are still unnaturally narrow in places with stray patches of ice to wrack one up. The snow banks at intersections, too, are making sightlines more theory than reality. You can see on their sides - like geological strata - the story of a number of storms from the lines of road sand thrown up by passing plows. But hey, it's Valentine's Day and it is warming up. Hallelujah!
It always amazes me that snow arrives in tiny star shapes of candyfloss-like webs of frozen water which weigh barely more than the air. How quickly the snow can pile up to such an extent it buries us all, in one way or another. From delicately spun ice stars which start falling in such a gentle way feathering along in breezes, all the way to gale forced torrents of sky confetti - the snow hits the ground and just keeps accumulating till its drifts become as unforgiving as stone. In its lightest versions, snow decorates, softens and beautifies everything in view. Masses of it or in its ice forms, it becomes life-threatening depending on the circumstance.
I was watching the snow clearing efforts in my parking lot during the last storm. We had started to run out of room to put the snow so that residents could park their cars. It struck me that we spend millions of dollars on moving, shoving and rearranging this substance to suit our needs. A substance, moreover, which will disappear in the Spring as though it never existed. Just for an instant while I watched the snow being plowed, snow became a mythical substance, a magical illusion which we all believe to be real - after all, we can see it, touch it and taste it. Yes. In the cold, snow is a force with which we must consider for our safety and livelihoods. In summer, however, snow would be a magical dream, as ephemeral as smoke. To someone who has lived their whole life in a warm climate, the whole concept of snow could be science fiction, fantasy, whimsy or the stuff of fairy tales.
I wish you love and warmth on this St. Valentine's Day.
Zakir's Gift
4 weeks ago
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