Let It Snow, Let Drifts Grow, Let Us Slow
Bring it on.
Bring on the breathless TV weather drones. Bring on the frantic milk-and-toilet-paper shoppers. Bring on the desperate homeowners fighting for the last snow shovel, stick of firewood or bag of ice melt at the hardware store. Bring on the school-closing second-guessing. Bring on the endless chorus that "no one" in Washington knows how to drive.
Bring it on.
Bring on the snow.
Silence, if only briefly, the honking and the squealing and the rubber-on-asphalt moan that is our daily soundtrack. Force us to hear the hush of falling snowflakes, an almost imperceptible sound, like two hands being rubbed together.
Throw a thick white blanket over all our human imperfections: our cracked sidewalks, our crooked shingles, our dented cars, our stinky dumpsters, our towering billboards, our trash-strewed riverbanks, our ugly strip malls, our mute and unblinking bollards.
Whiten all our window ledges.
Frost our gardens and our hedges.
Obscure all the city's edges
With your powder so sublime.
Inspire in us a primal longing for food and shelter. Engender in some long-suppressed strand of our DNA a nervousness that drives us to the market to hunt and gather. Convince us that a few talismans -- a gallon of milk, a bag of Bugles, a roll of toilet paper -- will appease the spirits, will help us survive the storm.
Let us succumb to our primitive urges.
Gather our shamans -- Toppershutt, Bobryan, Suepalka -- and make them chant and fall into a trance and summon forth the magic SuperDoppler.
There! On the flickering screen! It's a bird's-eye view of our village, etched with lines of barometric pressure and wind chill temperatures, the squiggly portents of our future, as reliable as the goat intestines our augurs once spilled.
Remind us of Nature.
Remind us that Nature isn't our creation; we're Nature's, subject to its immutable rules, occasional victims of its nonchalant shrug. Remind us that Nature doesn't care if we're inconvenienced by winter, any more than a tree cares when we cut ourselves shaving or a stone that we sat on our cellphone.
Slow us down. Make us decide what's really important -- what trip, what task, what so-called necessity. Challenge us to find new ways to reach the nearest store, ways that don't involve driving the paltry three-quarters of a mile.
Compel us to pull on socks and lace up boots, to bundle up and sally forth. Make us lean into the wind and hike, our footprints leaving temporary traces of our passage (for are they not a metaphor for our very lives?).
Encourage us to see the world anew, to notice how the fresh white mantle both blurs and transforms all that it covers: parked cars turned into lumpy hillocks, curbs turned into mere suggestions of the granite underneath.
Force us into close proximity with our families (without wringing one another's necks).
When the power goes out, challenge us to somehow entertain ourselves (without wringing one another's necks).
Shush the whiners who can't recognize that a snowstorm is a gift. Quiet those who would have us power through the day as if it were like any other. Shut the traps of people who believe a day off school for a kid is the end of the world. Silence those who are ticked that they're "essential personnel" -- or that they're not.
Allow us just a few hours of communion: with the huddled masses in the checkout line, with all the people shoveling off their stoops, with Nature itself.
So bring it on.
Bring on the snow.
Ice, however, we could do without. And sleet. We don't want any of that. Ditto freezing rain.
Let It Snow, Let Drifts Grow, Let Us Slow
Bring it on.
Bring on the breathless TV weather drones. Bring on the frantic milk-and-toilet-paper shoppers. Bring on the desperate homeowners fighting for the last snow shovel, stick of firewood or bag of ice melt at the hardware store. Bring on the school-closing second-guessing. Bring on the endless chorus that "no one" in Washington knows how to drive.
Bring it on.
Bring on the snow.
Silence, if only briefly, the honking and the squealing and the rubber-on-asphalt moan that is our daily soundtrack. Force us to hear the hush of falling snowflakes, an almost imperceptible sound, like two hands being rubbed together.
Throw a thick white blanket over all our human imperfections: our cracked sidewalks, our crooked shingles, our dented cars, our stinky dumpsters, our towering billboards, our trash-strewed riverbanks, our ugly strip malls, our mute and unblinking bollards.
Whiten all our window ledges.
Frost our gardens and our hedges.
Obscure all the city's edges
With your powder so sublime.
Inspire in us a primal longing for food and shelter. Engender in some long-suppressed strand of our DNA a nervousness that drives us to the market to hunt and gather. Convince us that a few talismans -- a gallon of milk, a bag of Bugles, a roll of toilet paper -- will appease the spirits, will help us survive the storm.
Let us succumb to our primitive urges.
Gather our shamans -- Toppershutt, Bobryan, Suepalka -- and make them chant and fall into a trance and summon forth the magic SuperDoppler.
There! On the flickering screen! It's a bird's-eye view of our village, etched with lines of barometric pressure and wind chill temperatures, the squiggly portents of our future, as reliable as the goat intestines our augurs once spilled.
Remind us of Nature.
Remind us that Nature isn't our creation; we're Nature's, subject to its immutable rules, occasional victims of its nonchalant shrug. Remind us that Nature doesn't care if we're inconvenienced by winter, any more than a tree cares when we cut ourselves shaving or a stone that we sat on our cellphone.
Slow us down. Make us decide what's really important -- what trip, what task, what so-called necessity. Challenge us to find new ways to reach the nearest store, ways that don't involve driving the paltry three-quarters of a mile.
Compel us to pull on socks and lace up boots, to bundle up and sally forth. Make us lean into the wind and hike, our footprints leaving temporary traces of our passage (for are they not a metaphor for our very lives?).
Encourage us to see the world anew, to notice how the fresh white mantle both blurs and transforms all that it covers: parked cars turned into lumpy hillocks, curbs turned into mere suggestions of the granite underneath.
Force us into close proximity with our families (without wringing one another's necks).
When the power goes out, challenge us to somehow entertain ourselves (without wringing one another's necks).
Shush the whiners who can't recognize that a snowstorm is a gift. Quiet those who would have us power through the day as if it were like any other. Shut the traps of people who believe a day off school for a kid is the end of the world. Silence those who are ticked that they're "essential personnel" -- or that they're not.
Allow us just a few hours of communion: with the huddled masses in the checkout line, with all the people shoveling off their stoops, with Nature itself.
So bring it on.
Bring on the snow.
Ice, however, we could do without. And sleet. We don't want any of that. Ditto freezing rain.