The Storm

It is 4:03 a.m. on this brisk Saturday morning of in the small town of McCandless, PA. Tonight as usual I sit with trusty laptop in hand seeking some divine inspiration to write. My fingers lie still on the keyboard awaiting their first instructions. With my Word document open, I stare intently at the blank page and a blinking cursor that seems to rhythm the beating of a heart. It is strangely silent. I feel most at peace and ready to work. I am a ‘night owl’ by nature and there are many like me, those returning from the graveyard shift or a long night out on the town, insomniacs, newborn babies crying to be fed, but something about this early morning would be different. No traffic can be heard on this usually busy street where I live.

Suddenly, I hear the shrill sound of wet tires spinning but going nowhere. Occasionally, I see through my partially open blinds flashes of PENNDOT lights flickering up and down my street. Outside my seven foot tall picture windows bright white mounds of snow blanket my town like a thick layer of fluffy marshmallow. The snow sticks to every surface I see and strangely illuminates the night sky with an iridescent glow.

I like this view from my living room. I can see the traffic lights at the intersection on my corner cycle through their continuous colors of red, yellow, and green as if sensing phantom cars and trucks and the bright lights of the local gas station’s empty parking lot. However, dawn is approaching. Plow trucks emerge and arm themselves with defenses of rock salt and tire chains like an army waiting to wage war. I see a plows sharpened blade brush through the first layer of snowfall making a massive snow peak in a neighboring parking lot. In a month it will still stand ever so slowly diminishing covered with the soot that busy lives leave behind. Then I hear a plow’s horn beep three times signaling to anyone behind it, clear the way there is work to be done. Here in my small neighborhood early risers wake to see what nature chose to give to them this night. Steaming cups of coffee in hand and the dread of the shovel and its back breaking labor weigh heavy on their minds. So tempted to wait out the storm, but hospitals need their nurses, stores need clerks and customers and our mail must go through.

The unlucky Saturday morning commuters line up outside my window patiently waiting for the traffic light to change. Their faces tell of exhaustion from the morning of work that the night of snowfall has created. I can see the gas station is starting to buzz with drowsy customers needing a strong coffee and a fresh glazed donut. Some patrons are standing outside pumping gas, jumping up and down, and breathing into cupped hands trying to get warm. Delivery drivers unpack cartons of much needed supplies. The small wheels of their dollies, loaded with the essentials of milk, eggs and bread, barely make onto the freshly shoveled sidewalk of the store front.

The snow hasn’t stopped yet. The wind is blowing violently in all directions making swirls of snowflakes appear to dance to their own silent song. I have seen blizzards like this before in my hometown of Johnstown but not here in the big bad ‘Burgh. It makes you wonder. Why do we continue to live where snow plagues us three months out of the year bringing with it so much damage and grief?

I think it’s because when the first snowfall of the year dusts our faces and we look skyward with a smile, we welcome it like an old friend returning from a long journey. It’s watching children’s faces when they finally get bundled up to go outside and create snow angels and make-shift igloos. Its neighbors helping neighbors dig out and lend a hand without complaint or reason. It’s a good snowball fight no matter what age you are. It’s something that not everyone may get to experience in a lifetime. I read a saying somewhere that “Nature is the art of GOD” and we his audience. Our nature can be so unpredictable at times, but it will still go on challenging us and so we will accept its challenge and live on.