Snow

Portland usually doesn't get much snow. We might get a flurry or two in a typical winter, and maybe every five or ten years we'll get a big storm with rarely more than 10 inches for the year. Within a day the snow inevitably turns to a giant sheet of ice that slowly thaws over time. Or sometimes it thaws very quickly and there are large floods. This year has been somewhat different as most of you are certainly aware. My reckoning has logged about 12 to 14 inches of snow for the winter, and there has been snow on the ground since Dec. 28th. School was cancelled yesterday and remains so today. A 4-6 inch layer of dry snow and freezing rain is encrusted in a centimeter or two of ice forming a neat, clean blanket over the world. Sure I am happy to get out of school and play in the snow and ice, and to drink hot chocolate and tea after wandering in temperatures that range from 10-20 F. But there is something unique about snow in a place which rarely gets any. The city has virtually been shut down, and the ice has rendered most government agencies and businesses closed. The streets are hazardous for driving. A small child died in eastern Oregon. And despite the chaos of a debilitating winter storm, people seem happier and almost more at ease in the ice lock than ever. I walked with Erin up to the top of the hill to meet my mom at a coffee shop on her way home from work, and then we went over to the market to get a little food. The streets were more bustling with people of all sorts and enterprises than even occurs on the most pleasant spring or fall day. They were devoid of almost any cars but filled with walkers, sledders, and people enjoying the climatic aberration, skipping and missing school and work alike. Papaccino's, Starbucks, (the only city in the world that can support more coffee shops per intersection than Portland is Seattle. It has something to do with the climate I think) and the market were filled with more people than I'd ever seen before lounging, shopping, eating, drinking, and talking. Yet more noticeable than the quantity of people was the overwhelming personability that a little dose of common inconveniance seemed to arouse. How ironic that people should seem their happiest in what might seem to be a less than perfect moment. When else would you find a time where people let their dogs roam free and no one cares, or where people rush outside to meet and chat with even their most seemingly psycho neighbors, instead of avoiding them? I think you wouldn't. As odd as it is, snow has this electrifying effect that renders our busy modern lives so worthless that people gleefully revert to a more natural and human state.