Last month I put out two editions of Friday Notes, and this month I almost missed posting any (today being my last chance). To some extent, that’s just normal ebb and flow, but it’s also that I’ve been distracted by Real Life™ (such as it is).
I’ve been doing a lot of (in many cases rather interesting) reading lately — words going in rather than out — and I think any writer will tell you that’s the easier direction. Sometimes the much easier direction.
But I do have some notes (and pictures)…
So. Here we are in 2023. Weird. Very weird. As I’ve said many times, I remember wondering whether the year 1984 would turn out to be anything like its infamous eponymous book. And the year 2001, also famous but more from the movie than the book, once seemed like the very distant future to me.
And now I find myself two decades beyond the very distant future. (And still no flying cars or Moon vacation resorts.) Down here on Earth, in Minnesota, our mild winter finally got its act together and gave us a proper winter snowstorm. (Oh, boy, did it ever.)
I’m still recovering from all the shoveling plus a full week with my pal, Bentley!
“Oh, the weather outside is frightful…” Bad enough that it’s three degrees above zero as I write this (with the high today only four degrees). But there’s a winter storm warning in effect until 3:00 AM tomorrow morning. (Severity: Moderate; Possible threat to life or property.) We’ve had 2.3 inches of snow so far with another 7.2 inches expected.
But we’re Minnesotans, and we expect this stuff. Wouldn’t be a proper winter without a bunch of puffy frozen water covering everything. And people scraping various forms of it off their cars. The Minnesota Winter Ballet!
More importantly: Merry Winter Solstice! Less than two hours away as I write this…
Since my last post, I’ve been metaphorically becalmed. Which might sound nice, but it’s a term sailors use when there’s no wind, and they’re stuck in one place. Lately, I’ve felt as if there was no wind in my sails.
Some of that is seasonal. The short days, and then that damned “falling back” with its even earlier sunsets. The winter cold and the joy/misery of snow. (I genuinely do enjoy getting outside and shoveling, but it gets harder every year. Growing old is a pain.)
I thought maybe I could kickstart myself with a Friday Notes post.
Everyone knows “Eskimos have 50 words for snow.” Everyone knows that’s an urban myth. Both statements are true for appropriate values of everyone. The truth, of course and as usual, lies in the middle and is both more elusive and more nuanced.
The frosting: as with many of life’s more vexing issues, there is also a definitional component, and things depend, at least somewhat, on perspective. What constitutes a word and how does the basic language structure introduce new concepts, with new words or phrases?
But no matter because this post isn’t about the 50 words for snow.
I get a kick from the patterns of life. They don’t always mean anything, but they can be fun to notice. For example, nine years ago I posted Instant Winter, which, among other things celebrates the tiny (meaningless) pattern of the date that day: 12-12-12 (You can arrange the year-month-day any which way you like!) Nine years later, it’s December 12th again, but the year is backwards: 12-12-21
12-12-21 after much shoveling. It was up to 3 feet in places!
That post also celebrated, as its name says, the sudden arrival of winter (late as usual these days). And per that, it arrived late again this year, but when it finally did show up it, came in with a bang (I don’t know about lions in March, but December seems to roar).
11-25-21 and not a drop of snow in sight!
It didn’t come anywhere close to snowing for Halloween, and there wasn’t a flake in sight for Thanksgiving, but it seems certain we’ll have a ton of the stuff for Christmas! Winter and snow cause all sorts of small issues, but many years of conditioning have linked snow and Christmas for me.
12-7-21 It always starts so softly and innocently…
Time to break out the shovels!
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In other news, I’ve been reading books and watching TV shows, and I’d love to tell you about them, but I’ve already gone on long enough for one post.
Stay warm, my friends! Go forth and spread beauty and light.
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It has been quite a year, but very many of us are very thankful about our Presidential election. We’re grateful for a return to sanity, decency, and our espoused American values and political traditions. (As much as possible under the circumstances, anyway.)
Sadly, we’re far from the idealized image of Norman Rockwell’s Freedom from Want. (And weren’t we always, really?) We’ve long upheld those ideal values as our goals, the change we’re trying to be, but we’ve been tested and been found wanting these last years. Maybe 2020 can be a turning point — we skated awfully close to the Abyss this time.
Meanwhile, in local weather news…
I wanted to call this post “Instant Winter” but I used that title eight years ago. Pity given that, as of yesterday morning we had no snow, and by 5 pm it looked like the picture above.
It would have been a good title.
We got our first snowfall of the season today. It melted immediately, but it was really pretty while the big soft flakes were pouring down.
Snow “pouring” was the topic of a small controversy once long ago…
We interrupt this regularly scheduled blog post for an Important Weather Update! Afterwards, please stay tuned for News From Space!
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