Everyone wants to talk about the weather, but no one wants to talk about life

“Man, it’s cold,” I heard the man with the frosty beard say, while he stomps his feet and pulls hiw coat up all the way to his ears.

“Yup,” Nick Wilson nods. “Barometers down. Cold as hell.”

I chuckle silently at the irony, the disparate contradiction of the description. But I agreed. It was cold. As I shoveled off the walk and threw salt like feed to the chickens, my breath froze midair and the crystals hang on my upper lip.

My neighbors and friends shuffled by to check their mail, arms shoved deep inside their pockets. And it seemed everyone wanted to talk about the same thing.

The window where I sold stamps was the literal center of the community. I heard about all the good deals, the bad characters, the broken cars, the rotten eggs, the bad tomatoes and yes, the weather.

“Cold front from Canada.”
“So hot it wilted my lettuce”

“Low Pressure.”

Sometimes it seems that we’re nervous to talk about real life – the stuff like children and aging, love and divorce, betrayal and loyalty. With everything so much more important in the light of eternity, all we can talk about is the precipitation and humidity, dew point and frost.

It’s a shared narrative, a common calamity. We all must endure the extremes together as community. We’ve haven’t all lost a job, or a spouse, or a child, but we’ve all sweated under the blazing sun. We’ve all stood against the winter’s blast. We all heard the wind howl.

We’re so terribly obsessed with tomorrow’s temperatures, yet we could give a rip about eternity.

Care to comment? What’s your weather like?

Please, share with a friend if you feel moved.
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