This holds true as long as you are not caught in an airport or a train station or in your car driving 25 miles-an-hour on a snowy highway. If you have the misfortune of being in one of these places, then a snowstorm instantly becomes a harrowing experience.
However, if timing and luck are on your side, and you are at home for the duration, then the storm becomes fun and exciting. This is especially true if you love playing in the snow, making snowmen, having snowball fights, and enjoying the sight of everything looking fresh in a layer of new fallen snow. Dogs especially love playing in the snow. It is so much fun to watch dogs romp around in the snow having an absolute blast.
Snowstorms bring a quieting calm. Local traffic suddenly disappears, everyone remains inside their houses, and the only sound outside is the wind howling in the crackling branches.
The intriguing aspect of a snowstorm is that it affects everyone in its path, yet it is completely beyond anyone's control. We are reminded that nature is the one truly in charge here.
The news of an impending snowstorm automatically creates a deadline to get things done, namely running to the grocery store to buy milk and bread. Because, after all, if there is no milk and bread on the premises during a snowstorm, how will anyone survive?!
But seriously, with an approaching snowstorm, suddenly no one is putting off that trip to the grocery store or postponing picking up things that have been lying around in the backyard since autumn. Cars are gassed up, and errands previously overlooked become completed. It is a satisfying feeling to get all these things done, especially before the snow begins to fall.
With all errands completed, under the impeding deadline of the storm, we are pleasantly forced to stay inside and take a break as we turn to simple pleasures: propping feet up by the fire, making a mug of hot chocolate or tea, finally watching that movie you've been meaning to watch or finishing that book you've been reading.
A snowstorm is nature's way of saying it's okay to forget about all those pesky items on your to-do list and simply relax for awhile. Quietly reflect, watch something funny, laugh, take pleasure in present company, and enjoy the moment.
Cooking is a great thing to do during a snowstorm, especially making a winter comfort dish like a risotto or a vegetable soup that simmers on the stove for hours and is served with copiously buttered multigrain toast and paired with a nice Australian Shiraz.
The most convenient timing is for a snowstorm to begin on a Saturday afternoon or Saturday evening and progress overnight into Sunday. For those in the path of the storm, this timing brings the least amount of inconvenience as long as they are all toasty inside their homes with slippers on and a hot mug of libation in hand.
Post Offices and banks are closed on Sunday, schools are not in session anyway, and most people have Sunday off from work. Of course, people everywhere are traveling on Saturdays and Sundays so for them, there is no convenient time for a storm to strike. Being stranded cannot be fun.
For the rest of us, a snowstorm is almost like being happily forced to take a day off. Plans get canceled and rescheduled as the weather makes any localized travel difficult if not impossible.
Knowing a snowstorm is en route, the Weather Channel becomes the most important channel in the lineup with continual reports from points along the snowstorm's path.
On any other day, the Weather Channel is routinely passed over because watching the Weather Channel during perfectly good weather is pretty pointless. However, with a snowstorm in the offing, the Weather Channel becomes the quintessential reason why you subscribe to cable or satellite TV in the first place.
Pour yourself a mug of hot chocolate, prop your feet up, and if you feel like it, check in with the Weather Channel from time to time. Snooze, relax, and enjoy being snowbound for the moment.
Here's to snow!
Great picture anders! Have you seen anyone trying to hold their parking spot with a lawn chair yet? ?
ReplyDeleteA well-put assessment of snowstorms! The moody & atmospheric wintry photo is impressive. No city is so photogenic as when covered in snow.
ReplyDeleteI see the commentary was made on the evening of Dec. 19, just as the east-coast "monster storm" or "Blizzard 2009" as the newscasters were calling it, was getting seriously underway. At the very time you entered your comments, people were arriving at my NYC apartment for a little holiday gathering. Just as people sometimes hold "hurricane parties," this one became in effect a "snowstorm party," though it hadn't been planned as such. If you stood by the Christmas tree & looked out the windows, the somewhat blurry view was of heavy snow blowing horizontally & furiously in front of the street light below, and fast building up on the street. It was also bulding up on the backs of the parked cars; the strong winds kept it blown off the front & tops.
The 15-20 people present obviously hadn't been deterred from coming out in the stormy conditions, not only from here in Manhattan, but from other boroughs and even, in one case, Connecticut! Not too surprising, since almost all were Sierra Club photographer-types. A few did have some problems getting home afterward (no one was driving, fortunately) but nobody felt it hadn't been worth getting out & "taking on" the storm. One person, after walking the dozen blocks to her place, called to say the walk was "glorious!"
I think most of these friends would agree with your (& my!) approach to the subject.