I mean, just look at it.
Pure, clean snow. Covering everything. For at least a short time, hiding all our sins and failings.
Not just visually. Walking in fresh-fallen and still falling snow is quiet. The only sounds are the susurration of the wind and the slight squeak or crunch of my boots on the snow. Daisy’s romping into drifts makes no sound.
Gone, or masked like the dirt and the litter are the sounds of traffic from the thoroughfare two blocks away. Cars as they struggle through the 10 cm-deep powder whisper only as they pass.
But it’s the visual that strikes immediately. White piling on branches and the top railings of fences, the high, narrow piles defying gravity.
When snow falls at night, the shadows big as golf balls dance over the blankets ground as the flakes swirl past the street lamps. It’s a silent, magical ballet.
And Daisy, the puppy, loves the snow even more than I do. It pulls her like a puddle pulls a toddler, the deeper the better, and she returns home more than double the weight when she left.
Turn on the local radio, though, and all you hear are complaints about shovelling, slow traffic, school bus cancellations. All reasons to stay home and watch the snow fall before your eyes. Or, if you’re starting to get cold, through your window.
The world is getting warmer. Snow is a pleasure that will be lost to more and more people over the years.
Let’s enjoy the beauty, the quiet, the undeniable FUN while we can.
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I love my northern city, too. I was born here, and except for almost fifteen years in Tennessee, I have always lived here. I was very happy to get back here where we have several distinct seasons, and, of course, where English is spoken.
I’m not terribly worried about future generations missing out on snow and cold. The geologic records show thousands of years of alternating extremes of cold and warmth, and it will continue until God changes it. I expect to enjoy it all if extremists don’t irreparably damage the nation to gain control over every miniscule aspect of people’s lives.
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Who does more more to gain control over every “minscule” aspect of people’s lives than religious people? Thanks for responding, but human-caused global warming is real. So most of us want to figure out ways to stop making things worse. When — and it’s when, not if — there’s no longer an appreciable winter in Ottawa, I’m going to miss it.
And the fault is squarely with the fossil fuel industry, and the people who go along with it for perceived bribes.