It is not often that we get any real winter weather here in my hometown. The mountains to our east are too high and the ocean to our west too vast, so our darkest months tend to be chilly and wet and grey, rather than white.
Every few years, however, we get some real snow. When this happens there is much rejoicing and everything shuts down. Those residents who have migrated here from snowier climes too often waste this magical, breathtakingly quiet time in scoffing at our noobish inability to function when the ground is covered, but to them I say this: how much better is it to be skiing in the streets and sledding to the store for a few days than to grind on through the grey and dirty plough drifts in our same old workaday worlds?
Also, we have almost zero snow ploughs, true story, since we so rarely need them. So when it snows a lot here conditions really are much worse in many areas, making a lot of people who have never had the need or opportunity to drive on ice and snow suddenly have a, ummm, crash course of study.
Better by far then to stay in, romp around, make hot drinks and decadent foods, watch some Olympics and build cardboard houses, throw snowballs and watch birds, venture tunnels and draw with sticks, make fallen angels and find animal tracks. Better to take the gift of a few days to just enjoy, because you know that the time will be fleeting.
I have spent some winters in the midwest and New England, and that kind of endless slogging and ground covering requires a whole different list of supplies and tricks to survive. Respect to you all, I almost went out of my gourd with the lack of color in the landscape (though my driving, thankyouverymuch, was and is just fine), but here that erasure is such a treat.
Next, a look at how these storms too often end. Until then, friends, be cozy and safe and full of life wherever you are wintering!
