It’s the end of January, not the month known for going out (coming in?) like a lion. But this year it’s doing just that. Wild wind, rough rain, flash flooding.
King Lear weather.
“Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drenched our steeples…”
We are not the first to see weather as sign of a disordered world.
But this time, maybe we’re right.
(Not this steeple! It’s in Annapolis.)
After several futile forecasts yielding nothing, we woke up this morning to a white world. Not quite an inch yet but it’s still falling and roads are cold enough that every flake is sticking.
Maybe weather-watchers knew this snow was on the way, but I didn’t, so I felt like a kid this morning when I glanced outside, saw the white coating on the deck, the flurries in the air. For just a minute I felt that leap in the heart: No school today! No school!
And then I remembered: I don’t go to school anymore. I go to work. And yes, we are having work today.
(We didn’t receive quite this much! This is an old photo…)
Because the real thing continues to elude us. Because we are either too far south, too far east or (this time) too far north. (Hard to wrap my head around that one.)
Because the last time we had two inches of snow was almost two years ago, here is a picture of what it was like in the old days.
We have more than virtual snow, however. We have that acrid taste in the air when snow is near. And we have the cold air behind the front. Cold air that pushed the clouds away and gave us back the sun.
The season has been mild for us, so I’m glad I took the mountainous route home yesterday. The road winds from Intestate 79 to Interstate 81 on two-lane roads with drop-dead views.
The drop-dead part is not entirely metaphorical. Guardrails are few, elevations are high, descents are steep. Some of the hairpin turns make your stomach drop, especially heading east, when you’re on the one-foot-more-and-I’d-be-over-the-edge side.
My heart was pounding extra hard about this route yesterday, because the road was still sloppy and gritty from a nighttime dusting. I almost turned around, but am so glad I didn’t.
New snow had whitened each branch of each tree, freshened the ground cover, softened all but the craggiest mountain peaks. For miles I drove through tunnels of white under a blue, blue sky. And then, I crossed some divide, descended to some height and the snow was gone.
It was winter without the work. Drive-Through Winter.
The snow was late, as snow often is in the mid-Atlantic. When it shows up at all. Let’s just say we’re accustomed to disappointment, to sprinkles instead of flurries, to sleet that “holds down the total.”
Snowmaggedon and Snowpocalypse, those were aberrations. A dusting on the grass, that’s our fate.
So when I woke this morning to dry pavement, I didn’t think much of it. Another false alarm.
Twenty minutes later it began. Not flurries, nothing tentative about it.
Snow falling as straight as rain.
Strong gusts bend the bamboo beside our deck, riffle the hollies, berry-less this year. The sky is an angry purple except for a white strip along the horizon. Christmas is riding in on the west wind.
Yesterday’s last-minute shopping meant parking at the far end of town and backtracking to the bookstore. No gloves for some reason, so I crammed one hand into a pocket, used the other to hold the bags. It was almost dark by the time I got home; Reston Town Center was all decked out for the season.
Now I sit in warmth, willing myself to stand, walk upstairs and dress warmly enough for a windy walk. But first I notice how our tree lights are reflected in the window. They’re an overlay of cheer on a gray and unforgiving world.
They’re forecasting rain and snow today. But it’s still autumn, I silently protest. It’s not even December yet. Let’s just say rain and hope for the best.
Weather is neither kind nor vengeful. I know this. Yet I must harbor some ancient belief or prejudice that makes me permeable to the meteorological mood.
One reason I like the climate of Washington, D.C., is that, despite its muggy summers, it’s a surprisingly sunshiney place. If a “mix” is predicted (like today), it’s more likely to be rain than snow, sunny than cloudy. That’s a mix I can live with.
The Shenandoah Valley, snapped from I-81 on Saturday, when no wintry mix was forecast.
The first day of winter is still weeks away, but this feels like the real thing: Cold and light earlier than usual, the low temps not part of the night but part of the day. Just so there can be no mistaking.
I notice the silence. The robins and jays have left us; the juncos have not yet arrived.
The shutters are closed, but I spy through cracks the flicker of branch stir outside, as a brisk breeze sets treed leaves a trembling.
Here in this quiet hour, clocks ticking again on standard time, I think, resignation is much like this — to crave long days and fireflies, yet know even in my longing that this is what must be.
When constructing my fantasy life I often get hung up on location. The suburbs are out, and a pied-a-terre is a given (after all, I still have to earn a living); the confusion comes with the country retreat. A cabin in the mountains? A cottage on the shore?
After Sandy, the answer is clearer. After Sandy, the mountains are starting to look pretty good. After Sandy, I wonder: What happens when the places I love are under water?
There’s Venice. But of course with Venice it has always been part of that city’s doomed charm.
And there’s Chincoteague. As the wind and rain pounded us Monday I thought of my time there this summer, the stillness of the refuge, the beach that goes on forever. Does it still?
And now there’s New York City, too. Sea water coursing through subway tunnels, lapping at the steps of the Stock Exchange. Apocalyptic visions.
People perish; place endures. Or at least it used to. I’m not so sure anymore.
(Lower Manhattan from the Brooklyn Bridge.)