It's snowing outside...
Who would've thought we'd have snow in the middle of March? Down here in Stockholm where we usually don't even have it for Christmas.
It's been a strange year this year, not least with the covid strain sweeping through our human realm and populating with pandemic swoop result, but also with the weather.
Also with a lot of things, but let's just focus on the weather since that's what we Swedes typically tend to do when we get together and don't have anything else to talk about. Or don't dare take the step to controversies over common courtesies. I don't know if it's really like that anymore. Maybe be a myth but...
Some time last year - not sure when - we had a full month of cloud. Not a ray of light. Not total darkness but total gray and gloomy all day, and short days.
A few weeks in I was getting severely depressed; reminded of how old posts I'd posted where I seemed overly so were really not blown out of proportion at all. That's really how you feel when you feel like that. and then when everything gets better you forget how low those lowest points can be... until you return there, to that bottomless quicksand pit it seems life throws you to every now and then, most recently for work-related uncertainty woes and/or simply lack of sunshine.
But the sun rays came back, and Christmas passed, and the day after we had snow. Just for a couple of days. Just enough to remind us that it really was Christmas.
The weather relapsed to melting again, then came New Year, and in came the snow again! To remind us it really was a New Year after all.
And then it passed, and all returned to normal, the weather started getting warmer, but the nights were cold and the days cloudy and still somewhat bleak... and then came the snow again!!! This time in full force.
It snowed so you could actually shovel, and feel there was snow, and it stayed for a whooping three weeks and then some! Didn't melt once. You could see the edges slowly creep away against the gravel on the sunniest days, and I spent one particular weekend walking so much I almost got burnt, in February! Who would've thought.
Gradually the snow piles grew lower, and then in three days and nights it melted away, leaving only gravel-strewn piles here and there as a winter memento, and the days went, and work picked up again, it seemed to get warmer, but the nights grew colder, and the day before yesterday the snow started falling again...
Just a little then, but today it's all out storm, and the world that was recently Springing up in green and turquoise (I don't know that it really was, it just seemed like a suitable color combo call out here) is suddenly covered in white once again.
Was actually feeling a little under the weather when I woke up today, maybe a bit too many late nights; early mornings; too much weight vests on walks in an attempt to get in shape without making extra time-consuming effort... but I've been eating supplements, feeling better, and as the layers pile outside I currently feel the best I've felt in a while today.
Almost had to let that one rhyme, like I do sometimes, though it makes better sense like this. Like chips. They make sense but don't make amends or bliss.
In normal wording now I realize I've come to actually really like snow.
On the darkest days it's what gives me hope. Whenever it comes around I brighten up. The world brightens up. Everything looks softer, and cozier, and clearer. It hides the dirt. It hides the trash people throw away. A shopping cart someone had dragged to a nearby underpass was entirely submerged for those full three winter weeks earlier on. We thought someone had finally fetched it.
I used to love summers like no other season, but lately I've been loathing the heatwaves that come with it, and realizing that maybe the thing I like most about them is really the sun, and in darker seasons the snow is almost like it's paler cousin. Like a third moon.
It might not give out as much D-vitamin and UV light, but it reflects the light there is. It's a helpful helper. A gifted uplifter. And ever since I started taking these daily cold showers I seem to have all the more an affinity for the cold that comes with it.
I love the sun. I love the snow. The way the weather's turning maybe we'll get a snowy summer this year too. And supposedly the gulf stream's stopping. Maybe we'll get a summer ice age too. Who knows?
Was going to weave in some mementos from last night's dream here too but I got side-tracked; don't remember that much about it anymore.
There were people after us though. The family has gathered in a room somewhere. A cozy place. We covered the windows. I crept in under a blanket. I was small again....
But summer's coming soon and it'll be fall again.
