We finally got our first blizzard. It isn’t the first snow that will probably stick around for a month or more (that fell a few days prior) [and all of this turned out to be speaking way too soon since we have rain and temperatures in the high 30s and 40s forecast for a week from now so it probably won’t actually last a month], but we got a decent amount of snow dumped on us and even more whipped around. The winds were so strong that they were picking snow up off the ground to add to the stuff already in the air because it hadn’t hit the ground yet. It was quite a day and I spent it working from home since it started in the early hours of the morning and carried on until an hour or two before midnight. It was quite a pleasant bit of weather to enjoy from the cozy confines of my apartment. I’m luckly enough, at present, to avoid most of the unpleasant bits of winter weather since I don’t have to shovel any sidewalks or driveways, I didn’t have to drive anywhere, and all that took me outside was my own desire to go out in the snow as it fell. A desire I sated mostly by opening my door to my balcony rather than by going downstairs since my landlord has done a pretty poor job of maintaining the sidewalks between the apartment buildings and I didn’t want to mess with slush and ice on top of all that wind. I even discovered the the tree right outside my balcony is the perfect kind of pine tree to hold snow on its branches and gets transformed into a beautiful white statue. As far as wintery days go, this one was aesthetically pleasing to me and went a long way towards redeeming my experience with winter over the last few years.

Trying to go for my daily walk today nearly ruined that, though. Since we got slammed by so much snow in a single day after getting only a few light dustings and about and inch over the previous weekend, all of the snow removal services were incredibly busy. Sure, the bike path got plowed and the worst of the snow had been cleared away, but that left a layer of ice and slush for me to slip and slide through as I tried to just get my normal amount of daily fresh air and walking exercise in. My lower back muscles still hurt hours later, though a fair bit of that is probably related to the work I’ve been doing since my entire torso hurts, not just my lower back, and that lines up better with the work I’ve been doing than just sliding around during my walk. Still, it wasn’t fun to barely avoid faceplanting several times because the pathway I normally trust to be cleared by the time the snow has stopped (and that a lot of people depend on, in the bicycle-heavy city I live in) was done poorly and the roadway and parking lot that I use to access that pathway hadn’t been touched in well over twelve hours.

It is frustrating to watch the world around me need to learn how to respond to heavy snow every single year. Sure, we’ve had much lighter snow than usual over the last couple years, but we still get a lot every year, compared to many places in the US, and somehow it seems like everyone is always either entirely unprepared for even the most basic things or so wildly overprepaed that trying to do my normal Monday night grocery shopping took twice as long because three times as many people were there by the time I got off work and the shelves were far more bare than I’d seen them since the height of the pandemic in 2020. It’s mind boggling how easily everyone forgets even the most basic things like not changing lanes too quickly, driving at a consistent speed to avoid sliding or fishtailing in the slush, and clearing the snow off their car’s hood and roof so they’re not blinding themselves or the people behind them once they start driving fast enough to blow the snow off their car. Mind boggling and incredibly frustrating.

Other than all that, I personally enjoyed the snow. I wish people sucked less at living in a place where it snows frequently and volumnously enough that the local city and county governments have to consider how the salt they’re putting down effects the local water table, but I also wish I had a million dollars and that all the facists in the world would be transported to their own shitty universe where they can all be facists together and leave all us non-facists alone, so I don’t expect much to come of this wish. Instead, I’m going to do my best to avoid the shitty drivers and to find what joy I can in the quiet crunch of fresh snow beneath my feet even as the piled-up snow sneaks through my shoes and up my pant legs. It’s not that bad, really. It was only barely below freezing today and the wind chill was so low that I took off my heavy jacket, so all I really had to contend with was mildly damp socks because I was sensible and wore my heavy-duty socks that are much better at handling dampness than my usual socks. It worked out pretty well for me, all things said and done, and the slower going meant I had more time to appreciate my surroundings now that everything is blanketed in a heavy coat of snow finally. There’s more snow on the way (as of writing this), so I’m looking forward to enjoying this soft world a bit longer than I usually could before the mud and grime of the world beneath it will reappear.