The day after...

Yesterday was the day after a blizzard and after living in these parts for most of my life I've come to appreciate the day after.

Blizzards are part and parcel of life here in the North. Snow falls. The Wind blows. The wise stay home but those who must travel find the normally hospitable roads have grown narrow, uncertain, and drifted with white. In long single lines we crawl to our destinations and keep moving even when we see lights backwards and low on the road, the unmistakable sign of a car in the ditch. Like a herd that keeps moving after the lions have struck the weak we keep driving, (everyone has cell phones now right?) the car smelling of heat, the radio droning on, and a million white dots of snow in the headlights.

But it passes, as all things do. When the weather breaks the world is white and clean, at least for a day, and people emerge from their shelter. From inside the house you hear the scratching of shovels or the puttering of snowblowers. Trucks are on the street and in their glory as they skim through the rutted streets. The condescension of hybrid owners is meaningless today. If you've been any kind of decent person at all there will be someone to help you push your car and the grocery stores are full of people with big jackets and funny hats and better than usual attitudes unless they were towed to the city impound.

You see on the day after a blizzard you have to be a neighbor. In the world there are jerks and predators and wierdos and politicians and most of us spend our time just ducking for cover from them all and hoping to keep the noise down. But on the day after a blizzard the good people come out, the friends, the neighbors, the helpers, and the doers and do what they do best, shovel a little more, make sure the older lady next door is okay, share a ride, and look out for each other.

The snow on the day after a blizzard is beautiful but what it can bring out in people is more beautiful still. Would that every day be like the day after a blizzard.