Snow Falling On Something Other Than Cedars

I will not go into endless paroxysms of poetic amazement at the simple fact of flakes of frozen water falling gently to the ground. I won’t. I live in Metro Atlanta, where this perfectly natural combination of cold temperatures and precipitation is always greeted as a combination of holiday and climatic disaster.

Don’t misunderstand me; I’m not complaining about how Atlanta shuts down in a storm like this. It’s never been cost-effective for states in the Deep South to buy the number of snow-clearing vehicles necessary to deal with even a small snowfall. Tree-clearing vehicles and tools for dealing with tornado, hurricane and forest fire damage, yes, but not snowfalls. I can live with that.

I did go out and take a few pictures.

This one is looking down my street. No one was out in the neighborhood.

Yes, it was beautiful, though as you can see, the coverage wasn’t deep, nor very complete. By the end of the day the snpw had already begun to melt. Snowjam 2008 wasn’t much of an event, though it was rather pleasant to spend the day in the quiet.

There was a little traffic on Highway 92, up the street, but the snow seemed to hush even that occasional noise.

I think what we love best about snow days is the sense that suddenly all that is everyday, all that is humdrum, is shown to us from a different perspective. It makes us appreciate things a little better, maybe. It reminds us that beauty can come upon us at any moment. The question, as always, is are we ready to perceive it when it comes?

Today, as I walked with my dog Chloe in the falling snow, I had a moment to appreciate the snowy transfiguration of a suburban street, to see even the mundane can have it’s moment of beauty.

Not bad, Old Man. Not bad at all.