Because if you live in the Eastern half of the United States, it is on your mind. In my neck of the woods, we are expecting 8-12 inches of the money killer. That being snow. Nothing hurts my business more than this stuff. It even hurts when the weather people predict snow. It doesn’t matter that the snow never gets here, just the fact that it might, is enough to stop any revenue from coming into my establishment.
All that being said and with everyone knowing how much I hate white death, it can be beautiful. Don’t get me wrong, I despise the stuff. It just makes my soul ache every time we get a snow storm. There still is a beauty to the ravages of nature that is being spewed forth from the winter clouds.
As I was looking out of the windows of the empty restaurant today, watching the snow pummel the ground, trees, and any free standing object that was out of doors today, I did feel a strange, albeit fleeting, sensation of solitude. It made me feel like I was but one of a small hand full of people that were experiencing the eerie quiet and beauty of a snow storm. It was quite the struggle. One on hand, I was raging against the unfairness of it all. It was going to be a busy day (for February) and the weekend was looking good for people going out to eat. On the other hand, I was awed by nature’s eloquence. And winter’s solitude.
As I stood, looking out the windows, I was faced with this solitude. I was also facedwith the fact that this solitude, this numbing of white on white, was also affecting millions of people. Not just me. Not just in my neighborhood, but the entire eastern seaboard of the United States. But yet, I felt so alone.
Unlike the suddenness and the violence of spring storms, winter storms linger. They eat at the edge of what is your awareness. They persist. And also unlike the spring storms (unless they are tornado’s), which when over, they usually are over, a winter storm’s effects can last for a very long time.
And not least of the effects of this kind of storm is that it makes you go underground, so to speak. we all go out, buy supplies (milk, bread, lots of beer) and just hunker down. It is like an instinct that we all have, but just don’t quite understand. Just like the the gnawing at you very soul, your very awareness, that a winter storm causes.
In the midst of great consternation, there is yet the beauty of the raw nature that is a winter storm.
I still hate it though…
DandyID
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