Saturday morning was beautiful in our neighborhood as Summer and I went for our constitutional. The sun was beaming in the sky; it was chilly but not unbearable, the kind of late-winter chill that has a faint promise of spring in the air.
The red-winged blackbirds and cardinals serenaded us as we walked up the hill, and they seemed to be heralding the first day of spring a week from now.
If I’m to believe the meteorologists, 24 hours from now (or as you read this Sunday morning), we will be in the early hours of a snowpocalypse, and this beautiful sunny panorama will be replaced by two or even three feet of snow under gray skies by Monday morning. It’s an idyllic and even archetypal calm before the storm.
I thank the Creator of the universe for giving us a glimpse of the other side of the storm, for that is exactly what Saturday morning was. I imagine this might be what the morning before The Flood was like, and Noah was able to keep the peaceful image in his mind and heart as the waters rose and the ark began to float.
We had 30 inches of snow one April weekend back in 2018. At least this storm has the courtesy to swoop in while the calendar is still set to “winter.”
This Elsa, the name of this blizz last weekend, might be worse than the Evelyn eight years ago in ways. There are still some sidewalks with half a foot of melting snow to traverse. The streets are finally alright though.
Eight years ago I worked a job where, after Elsa finished in that mid-April, I had to pick up six dead Robins around the property. They were early birds to oblivion.
The birds better take it easy, I guess. Still a month of possible Elvira or whatever you want to call the next blizzard.