Upstate television news this morning showed a young reporter in a parka standing on the side of a highway in Spartanburg County, SC warning us about the dangers of the storm. I know that there will be accidents and injuries, but still I couldn't help but laugh all the way through the report, which lasted three minutes - quite a long time in terms of a news report.
He kept showing us how deep the snow was ". . . . a couple of inches at least." He showed us the slush on the roads and how the cars that went by left grooves in the slush. He commented on the fact that some people had dusted the snow from only their windshield and not the whole car, which was a bad idea. All the while he had the demeanor of someone reporting from the midst of the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius.
Only yesterday he warned us that the temperatures were going to be ". . . . bitterly, dangerously cold. . . possibly down to as low as 30 degrees." I realize that this is below freezing and that means ice. There will be blood, and I shouldn't laugh. But my husband is from Canada, I'm from the upper Midwest, and we get a kick out of how people in the deep south react to snow. We joke that both of the state's snow plows are busy today.
But when it's hovering around 100 degrees and the humidity is dead heavy in the summer - which seems to last about eight months here - I can barely move, while my neighbors are out and about enjoying themselves.
Hurricanes get my attention. All that time to prepare and see them coming just gives my anxiety time to get to work. Locals have hurricane parties. On the other hand, while I have a deep respect for tornadoes, I don't get anxious unless/until I can hear one, and by then it's too late to take a xanax.
When I first moved to northern Wisconsin from central Illinois, I shivered when it got to 20 degrees. My boss told me that believe it or not, there would come a time later that winter when I'd consider 20 degrees a heat wave. Sure enough. He was right. It took me a while to get used to people driving their trucks onto the lakes to build their ice shanties. I was amazed at how people got going outside when it got really cold. They'd snow shoe, ski, sled, fish. Ten degrees was just the beginning of Go Time! Minus 15 started to get a bit nippy.
It's just all a matter of what you're used to. For better or worse, our background and experience form a lens through which we see life. If we're lucky, we'll have many experiences and our lens will give us more of a wide-angle view. If we're wise, we'll learn when to remove the lens and just experience things as they are here and now.
It's still snowing and I'm hoping that we'll get enough to cover the ground in white, if just for a little while. I miss the silence and peace of snow - and of course I love to watch the local weather reporters.
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