A situation like this

First posted 2-26-04

"You know, a situation like this has a high potentiality for the common motherfucker to bitch out."
- Out of Sight

Ain't that the fucking truth.

But before that. I had originally a different topic in mind for my particular brand of rant tonight, but I've decided to postpone it until tomorrow. Timing wasn't quite right. But instead I shall talk first about the thing which I'm sure everyone who knows me expects me to talk about.

Snow.

Yes, it snowed last night. And in the very Georgia tradition of the season, school was closed on account of an inch of snow that is all but melted away. Got to love the South. In any event, here are the events. I wake up a quarter after 6 AM, thoroughly tired from staying up too late playing Tetris at Pam's. Probably had the most fun doing that than I have had in a very long while. The "Schnap" story will be a private joke between us, I am sure. Stagger and yawn through the morning routine, then wander over to the window and take a look outside. White. A white blanket draped over the cars. First thought is to immediately turn on the computer and check the email. Yep, school closed. Cool, can relax a little this morning, though I still go in early. And after a time and fashion, I step outside to travel to work. And I am confronted on the steps by the curved and patterned indentations of Jeff's footprints in the snow. I have not seen a scene of this magnitude in some time. I step slowly, carefull down the steps to the car. At which point I pause. I stop and smell the cleaness of the air. Hear the snow-crested stillness that only comes in the early morning after that snowfall. I look up to the depthless skies, paled over with gray clouds so that I cannot tell where the clouds actually stop. And I am happy. For three seconds there I am happy. I grab a wad of wet, packing, wonderful snow from the car roof, roll it into a ball and lightly heave into the air. I watch as it disappears into the lawn in that strange way that snow becomes other snow and is gone. And I proceed to work through the fairy land. Ruts on the pavement that haven't seen ruts in two years since the last snow. An early morning wakeup call snowman on the corner. And as I tremble up the bridge to work, shuffle the old man shuffle across the slippery creaking boards, I pause at the end near the building. I had never noticed before, but the end of that bridge dips between a bank of trees. Just sort of juts between them. This morning I paused in that section and stared through the white-lined branches until the roadwork and the streetlamps and powerlines all disappeared, and for a moment there I thought I was in the snow-tamped forests of my youth. In the accompanying peace and silence.

It is the silence that I love. Night snows are the best. In snowfall itself the flakes are large and stark against the night sky and they seem to drop from nowhere. Seemingly just a few feet above your head. There is no start there. Then you wake up early in the morning, before the world arises and see the fields, pristine and unmarred by the mark of man. As if I were all alone on this planet. But it's the silence most of all. It is quiet during the snowfall. No cars on the streets, people bundled warm in their houses. So quiet that I can hear my footsteps solidly crunch in the drifts. So solid, so sure. The sound reassures me that I am real. My footsteps make sound, they leave prints. I am alive. I am here. I am real.

Edit: snip out the emo