Ir's not quite Christmas eve, and I'm headed to bed. We were out a bit tonight, and it seemed like we were getting some serious snow. But we'll see. We're tough here in the Twin Cities and we hardly ever cancel anything, not like those rural areas you hear about.
Now of course there are reasons for this, reasons I knew nothing about until I lived in one of those (I thought) wimpy rural areas. Two reasons I can think of right away: 1. visibility. 2. blowing and drifting snow. Then there's the chance of getting stuck or going off the road when you are miles from anywhere, instead of two blocks away from a mall or a gas station. Maybe those rural people aren't so wimpy. Maybe they respect nature.
I kind of miss living in a rural area, and the adventure of serious snow. I miss getting snowed in. I miss having a break from the schedule, an opportunity to sit and read and knit (although in rural South Dakota I was doing counted cross-stitch) and watch romantic movies. I miss having my neighbors help me push my car out of a snowdrift.
It's snowing here, and it's almost Christmas eve. We'll drive slowly and safely to church anyway, and we'll shake the snow off our coats, and we'll sing the songs just like every other year.
But even if it's just a winter storm, and not an official "blizzard", it won't be like every other Christmas eve. This year will be its own year, the year more troops went to Afghanistan, and some sort of health care passed, but we didn't know if it would be a good thing or not. It will be the year a lot of us didn't have jobs, the year some of us were hanging on by our fingernails. It will be the year the kids didn't come home, the first year without grandpa, the year of the homemade scarves, the year we didn't have homemade cookies. It will be the year the euphoniums played at church, or your granddaughter sang a solo, or your grandson read the lesson at church. It will be the year you hold a candle and suddenly realize it is a "holy night", the year you yearn for peace, the year you wondered what it all meant.
And it will be the year it snowed. And snowed. And snowed.
6 comments:
no snow here, though....sigh....and I miss it terribly.
Evocative - snow snow snow... I wish you peace and warmth, and maybe some more snow!
It will be our first year neither leaving to visit family or having any kids home, so I'll probably get teary when we are actually sitting here alone. If there is church this evening, my husband will be singing the Light of Christ liturgy. That will be special. Although our pastor has a fabulous voice, we almost always have a worship assistant.
that sounds so special!
being in that 'wimpy' rural area... 2 of 3 services are now off. you're right it's wide, WIDE open and i'd be in a whole lot of trouble pretty quick if i got stuck...
i yearn for worship this afternoon, to mark a new, fresh, beginning... so full of hope and promise and healing.
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