Having a car, a TV, a computer, and electric heat, as well as indoor plumbing, helps me ignore the snow outside. I don't mean that I've completely forgotten it's winter, but since the season really only changes my clothes and maybe a few travel plans, it's relatively easy to just not think about what's going on outside the house. In other words, I know that yeah, there's snow, and it's pretty when I look out the window and when I take my walks, but for the most part I don't have to think about it beyond that.
But today, as I walked the dirt roads, it hit me - there's a lot of snow going on! The snowbanks are narrowing the roadway to one lane as their bases fatten, and the snow covering our lawn (and the rest of our immediate world like the woods and the fields) really does blanket the ground. And right now we're in the middle of a "weather system", as they say, which is warming things up and bringing rain. The ditches, full of snow, now have water too, pooling and puddling. However, the forecast is for cold, and as early as tonight the mercury will dip back down below zero, and won't stop until it hits minus ten or colder. So that means that all the water and slush of the present moment will turn to ice!
This is what happened last winter too: a lot of up-and-down weather. All the water on our roads and driveways would change from ice to liquid and then back again, with some in the form of snow, in between. This sort of weather is hard on the body, but harder on the head. It's discouraging when I think about global warming and how climate change means more precipitation in bigger loads, and less predictable warming and cooling for our region. And it's simply frustrating when you have a steep driveway like we do.
Life gets back to normal after the holidays, and at least my internal "weather" isn't as unpredictable as that outside. I have an appointment to get my hair trimmed later in the week, which I'm excited about. If I had to make a top ten list of life's simple pleasures, I think one of them would be getting a haircut. It's pretty simple, just getting rid of split ends, and getting some of the bulk of my thick hair taken off, but it always makes me feel like a bit of a new person. Sloughing off, I guess: getting rid of the dead ends, of what's no longer needed.
I'd like to know if you have a preference for the topic of my next blog post. What are you interested in hearing about? I could write about...
A. eating locally and how we're doing it in the depths of winter
B. my writer's group and how that's going
C. fitness and exercise, and what we do in winter to keep active
D. my relationship with writing and creativity, in general and lately
E. something else?
I'd love to hear from you. Leave it in the comments box.
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