So right now, like right, right now I am sitting at my desk at work. It is a stellar nine o’five a.m. Outside the winds are blowing -blowing like mad. Stark, raving mad. I think that I have become so used to the banging, pulling, hauling, streaking winds so very much that when I wake up in the morning and the winds are howling snow outside that I don’t tend to notice the commotion anymore.
Today was just like that.
When my chime came to call me out the door and walk to work I did something a little different today, I grabbed my snowboarding goggles.
Now these goggles were sent to me at my behest from home. Aside from the fact that I would have to bus mere hours to get to a shopping mall to buy said goggles, I put my goggles from home to use today. As I outed the door this morning I adhered the goggles to my face and made my trek to work. All of this not to mention the two feet of fresh powder at my door this morning. As I set boot to white, I sunk into the deep powder and began trudging my way to work.
I felt silly with the board goggles kissing my face but as I looked ahead of me I could hear that howling wind and see long strips of powder being pulled off of snowbanks and rooftops and being whipped across the roadway. Today was a day for goggles.
I sit here now in the office -yes, back to reality- and I have just been told by my workplace supervisor that elementary school is cancelled due to snow. Well, not just cancelled due to snow but cancelled due to high winds and limited visibility.
Every now and again as I crane my neck to the right to look out the tall office windows at ground level I can barely see outside. Snow is stripped and blown, or just blowing in out of the clouds and off of the ocean and across our parking lot to building-side and into town. There is a lot of snow out there.
As an adult, and as a teacher I have been told that I can brave the snows out to elementary school today. Just before lunch I will have to trek, goggled, to school to eat my portion of school lunch for the day. This uncanny trip to school in lieu of a student-free building today will make for teachers meetings and prepping lessons for the rest of the week.
Am I excited about this? No. Worried? No. Luckily my last weekend of snowboarding in horrendous conditions, reaching the base of the chairlift with a frozen face mask and frozen goggles -both inside and out- leaves no room for surprises upon my return home to this frozen weather.
I suppose that yesterday’s bout of melting snow was a freak day. Or maybe Spring poked its beautiful head into town just to let us know that it is sitting stageside just waiting for its cue to make a full appearance here in Embetsu (yes, I have decided to start officially using my town’s name in my posts). Spring will come. Spring is coming. But not before winter has its last ugly breath of cold and white upon our northern town.
And I just know that you know what weather like this calls for,
coffee,
coffee,
and more coffee to keep the brain excited and sane in the midst of the tumult outside.
Hope you get yours,
Ciao.
The Traveller's Typewriter 