How have seventeen days passed since my last blog post? It’s hard to believe February is already around the corner. It seems like a moment ago that I woke up on New Year’s Day, but three weeks of the new year are already gone.
Maybe it hasn’t felt much like winter because there has been little snow in the Boston area — a few dustings here and there, but nothing more. The winters are so variable in Boston; one year your neighborhood can be buried by weekly snowstorms, and the next you can barely touch your shovel. This year it’s been one of those untouched-shovel winters, but that changed in a big way this morning. A nor’easter blew in, and with it came several inches of snow, then sleet, and then more snow. As I write this just before 6 p.m., the sky is dark outside my office window and snow is still blowing through the orange light of the streetlamp that stands next to our driveway. I see that the shoveling I did earlier didn’t make much of a dent; there’s already a new coat of snow on my Subaru.
This storm is helpful to my writing, actually. I’ve been working on a fictional short story (for a change), and the action takes place on a snowy night. When you’re a writer, everything is an opportunity for observation.
Sometimes, though, it’s nice to let the thinking and even the writing go and just let the world be what it is. I love the snow; I always have. I know that for many people snow is about shoveling and snow blowers and inconvenience, but not for me. I love skiing and snowshoeing and being outdoors when the trees are frosted and everything looks fresh and new. Even here, in the less-than-picturesque suburb where we live, with its potholes and telephone wires and litter along the banks of the river (I really hate the litter), the snow makes everything pretty.
On that note, I’m going to head offline and enjoy the evening. A new semester has started and I’ve picked up a new freelance job, too. So I have to force myself sometimes to really take time OFF.
Have a good evening, friends and readers.
