Yep, it’s snowing again. As I was running today, this was my mantra: This sucks. This sucks. This sucks. Not the running, no no no, the snow. To be specific, it wasn’t really true snow, it was slush. I got slushed on. I was soaked, chunks of slush kept falling and sticking to my eyelids, and I was thinking, “what does the sun look like?” I don’t want to be whiner. Really, I don’t. I don’t want to be one of those people who can only complain about the weather. The fact is that I don’t like the person I become when the weather is consistently crappy for months on end. And that is why I must move. For my sanity, for me to be happy, for me to not be depressed for half the year, I must move. Michigan summers are wonderful, the rest is crap. I made a great attempt to cry, to validate my feelings.
As I was running and hating slush, I saw a UPS truck with the words “Worldwide Service” on the side, and that got me thinking about that little word “world”. Wow, what a powerful word! Everything, really EVERYTHING, is contained in it. That word means mountains and rivers, rain forests, tundras, deserts and oceans, plants and animals, and all kinds of people. It means food and dancing, and languages, and clothing. Customs and history, movement, and time. Snow, rain, sunshine, breeze, stillness, the moon reflected on a lake, and the woods alive with birds. Flowers in spring, children, vegetable gardens and grass. So so much; such an extraordinary, powerful word. I thought about this world I live in, and about how little I’ve seen and experienced of it. The fact is that I want more than slush.
Pictures of what I want:
The top one is Portland, OR; bottom left is the Chesapeake Bay, and the bottom right is the Outer Banks in North Carolina.
Sunny Days 