snow in the year of the rat

2/7/08

“adversity draws men together and produces beauty and harmony in life's relationships, just as the cold of winter produces ice-flowers on the window-panes, which vanish with the warmth.”
-kierkegaard

beneath the blanket of snow, the city is bustling, bustling. all is pristine and glistening. cars are jammed face-first into snow drifts, tires spin in vain against too-slick city streets. this is the winter that i like to see.

the busses were packed this morning, most people probably abandoned the idea of driving to work on half-plowed streets. as a result, the busses were over-full. the brave few who decided to drive inevitably ended up stuck in one fashion or another. some were doomed from the beginning, trapped behind glorious banks of freshly plowed snow. others managed to dig themselves out, only to find their vehicles pulled as if by some magnet into an embankment lining the roads.

the best part of all this for me was watching people's reactions. as i handled my own struggles, trudging through a foot of untamed snow in some areas, i watched drivers signalling to each other, neighbors with shovel and scraper liberating their comrades from the grips of the wintery terror. people were actually helping one another!

on my way to the bus stop, i saw a tiny street where 2 cars were stuck in the snow. one woman was stuck perpendicular as she was trying to go through the alleyway; another fellow's minivan seemed to be perfectly content to spend the remainder of it's days communing with nature. a little ways up the street, a city snowplower abandoned his post and had come to the aid of these two. an additional woman appeared from thin air, and as a team, the four were able to free the vehicles and share in a small victory.

personally, i hate snow. it is everything i disdain wrapped together: cold, wet, and oppressive to my happiness. i will say though, after yesterday's blizzard, i can appreciate my nemesis. it made people work together, even if the goal was something so small as to dig out a car or shovel a neighbor's walkway. after heavy snow, everything is beautiful and it seems that the people smile just a little wider, even if only for a little while.

here's a link for you. have fun.