The Winter Storm

A winter is measured by snow storms. A good winter usually has three or four small snow storms with less than six inches (about 15 centimeters) of accumulation, an above 40F (about 5 degree Celsius) weather right afterwards to melt the snow completely. Most importantly, no snowfall during major holidays like Christmas, Lunar New Year, Super Bowl etc.

By this standard, this winter is pretty good until now. This is the second storm, only four inches of accumulation (about 10 centimeters). Trying to take a picture or grab a video this morning, I adorned my favorite black coat with a fake fur hood and ventured out. But I soon realized that this neighborhood is not picturesque at all. There’s no scenery. There’s not even somebody who’s walking his dog. Wait, I wonder if a video of somebody else’s dog is legal.

Since the road hasn’t been plowed, I can only walk. To get a little bit of city snowscape, I need to walk all the way to the nearest Dunkin’ Donuts. I remember that I know somebody who’s interested in photography and she said to me that she had to go to New York City to find something worthy for her projects. I know nothing about aesthetics or art related things, but now I think of it, probably she’s right. I like Edison very much, but it is not beautiful. Somehow I can understand those homeless people setting up tents close to Venice or Santa Monica beach in California. They could live in a non-beautiful town as a worker bee working very hard to pay off their mortgage, or they could live on the most beautiful beach for free as a homeless. Giving these two choices, I am not surprise that there are people who choose the latter one.

As I was walking home, I thought about some of the Instagram reels online, and those snow scenes are breathtaking. I mean to shoot something that beautiful, one has to travel to a particular picturesque place with an expensive camera and at least two artistic assistants. Of course one has to be good at photography and videotaping to start with. I am not ambitious. I only want one or two average scenes to do a music poem, but I’ve been trying to do that for months. Still I’ve had no progress.

When I came back home, I thought that I should write a snow poem. A bad snow poem is still a snow poem. However this idea, for some strange reason, depressed me. It seemed to force me to feel and to express, which is as depressing as a forced silence. Especially now, after years of driving, I just hate snowy days when the roads become treacherous. How much of good feelings do I have for snow? Probably I have a little bit of chionophobia–the fear of snow. And the beauty of snowy landscape will soon be replaced by dirty snow banks, salt stains, reduced parking spots.

Well, let me have a cup of hot apple cider first and let’s do a hot pot for lunch. Many lunar new year parties would be disrupted this weekend.