In Which I Do Not Refer To The Weather

Woke up determined not to speak of the weather. Therefore I am going to try super hard, with almost everything in me, not to mention the various pressure systems moving up and down and back and forth the countryside like roaring and hungry lions, ready to devour us all. There were other stories and things to think about yesterday, things beside the total whiteout of hail-like snow careening from the stupid gray sky, things that had nothing to do with the bitter harrowing wind that tore through the trees outside my window, things that did not refer to the oppressive leaden sky. So many things.

Let’s see, what were they?
Lovely pictures of Barbara Bush. Funny Starbucks memes. Lots of information about the Southwest plane that got into such a pickle. Those were all on the interent. But life isn’t only lived online. There was also the physicality of lying on my workout mat, staring at an obnoxious skinny person doing various convoluted exercises with weights. There was the ruined kitchen late in the day, when no one had the energy to do anything about it. There was the virtual stack of email deserving of attention but receiving none. All that was there too.

And none of it had anything whatsoever to do with the weather. None of it. It was all about Other Things.

Like driving down the gray streets of this gray town, trying to avoid whacking great potholes, or averting the gaze from the broken ugliness of abandoned storefronts on every side. Like trying to convince oneself that the past wasn’t really better, it was probably just like this–hopelessly depressed economically and culturally, unshockable, decadent, so used to material ugliness that a walmart checkout aisle seems not only normal but right and good. The past couldn’t have been better. It is all one. Every age has its desperate evil ugliness, doesn’t it?

I mean, goodness, it has certainly snowed in April before. And there have been wars and rumors of wars. And there’s always been abuse and hardness of heart. The church has always been in a complete muddle. Children have always been disobedient, parents incompetent, chairs broken, pencils worn all the way down to their erasers, mashed potatoes abandoned on a plate because no one wanted to eat them. All these things have always been.

It is definitely not true that things are much worse now, that cultural collapse is dancing on the other side of the next bend, that the potholes in the dead Kmart parking lot are so big they could swallow a decently sized car, that the sky will always be ashen.

What I’m trying to say is, Good Morning. That’s all I am trying to say. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I am going to go drop a pile of vitimine D tablets into my morning tea. May God have mercy on us all.