Well, Portland, Oregon is shutdown due to snow. School cancelled for the second day in a week after a three-day weekend already spent in indoors. Many have lost power. And it’s only a few inches of snow! But it is cold, single digits with the wind chill. And we have an ice storm on the way. I love the snow, but as one Redditor in the Portland Reddit, said:
I feel you Snoo_5853.
Snow always makes me nostalgic for Colorado winters, where I grew up in the mountains. For, while there were undoubtedly some complications, the snow was fluffy and powdery, the sky blue the next day, the roads plowed and cleared within 24 hours. The snow here is ice. Being stuck inside is a little less peaceful than it used to be now with a two-and-a-half year old and a five year old.
I was poking around in some old writings and found this when I nineteen, attending Wester Colorado University in Gunnison, Colorado and I was struck by how similar I still feel about snow today:
“The road and conditions outside force one to slow down. A reminder that mother nature still has some control over us confident, but feeble humans. It’s amazing to me the lengths that man goes to to overpower the forces of nature at work. A snowy day should be spent indoors enjoying hot chocolate, a good book and a good friend. Or outside experiencing the beauty of a world in white. It is as if God is literally forcing the human race to be quiet and sit in solitude. Yet we push through the snow with snowplows and SUV’s, to get where we need to go. We have things to do. Sex and the City cannot wait. American Idol has only three contestants left. There is no time to sit and be. We use the technology we have created to push through, to keep moving….
I walk through campus, lampposts lighting my way. Snow covers all surfaces. It covers the impurities and lights up the darkness. It muffles the noise as my feet crunch and swish through the fluffy flour-like substance. It is snowing even now, gently falling, freshly covering every broken through layer. I kick through its dust, meandering through the college campus. Low flying clouds float and hang, holding, reflecting light back to the earth in an orange glow. All four colors contrast. Dark blue sky, gray wispy clouds, orange and yellow lights, and pure white snow. I pass some kids rolling a keg of something into their car, probably Root Beer. I see a group of skiers clad in baggy snow clothes, bright with colors of orange and green, hitting a handrail on their skis.”
Here’s wishing you a Happy Snow Day/Polar Vortex/Icy January wherever you are.
-Levi