snowfall

Snow is falling thickly and silently all around town right now. It's too warm for any to accumulate this afternoon, but as it continues falling overnight and the temperature drops, Mother Earth and Father Sky will be preparing a new world for us to live in come morning.

This reminds me of another February, 39 years ago, when my wife and I came limping back to Seattle after a very rough patch of time in California. She was pregnant with our daughter, I was out of work, and we were all but homeless. We were fortunate to have some kind of roof over us when the snow fell after a few weeks' warm stretch, blanketing the red camellias blooming outside our window, then sticking around a couple weeks.

Everything gets quiet and very peaceful when it snows. Traffic gets reduced by about 90 percent and the accumulated drifts muffle what little sound there is. The timing of this event is good from my vantage point, and I'm glad to see it this time.

Etaoin Shrdlu
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