The First Snow...

Here in the Northeast, we got our first snow of the season this weekend. There is just something so serene, so quiet, so redeeming, when you watch the snow fall to the ground - each and every flake gracefully making its landing, slowly accumulating, covering the dirt and mud and the first layer of the now-dirty snow, making it new again. From the safety and warmth of your window, the white-covered landscape is beautiful and perfect. But outside in the elements, it's cold and brutal and messy. (Unless of course you are actually out skiing but winter sports is currently not part of my lyrical musings, so please forgive me if I totally leave out the white powder high...)

We're expecting more snow tonight - the air just feels of... snow. It's heavy and cold and damp and cloudy outside - it's ominous and just feels like... snow. How does snow feel like? I'll tell you what snow feels like: it's lonely and serene at the same time, it evokes the same peace that you somehow feel when you have already accepted the inevitable sadness of a situation. In a very peculiar way, it reminds you that there are so many other things in this world that are real, that are prettier when gazed at from without instead of within, things that are ugly and beautiful at the same time. Very much like this...

The Last Vigil

On the eve of the funeral, Katherine insisted on sleeping next to Jim's body, so the Marines arranged a bed and offered to stand guard through the night. She fell asleep to music she and Jim had planned to play at their formal wedding celebration when he returned.

(From Time Magazine 21 November 2005)

So forgive me if I cannot care less about lame nativity lawn displays or Intelligent Design or the Vatican Gaybusters... they do not mean much to me right now. Forgive me if I cannot find the humor and irony in a snowflake tree display - real snowflakes are so much more palpable and consequential. Forgive me if at some point, I just refuse to think about anything anymore. I would just rather watch the snow fall gently to the ground and feel the sardonic quiet and pained serenity of it all.

To Ali Velshi: Dude, PLEASE STOP FLIRTING WITH HER HOTNESS, DELIA GALLAGHER!!! Thanks.