March in Columbus, Ohio

In Columbus winter begins to relinquish its grip in March, but only reluctantly. The battle with spring takes place under gray skies, and tree branches with pinhead green sprouts rattle in the wind, and something falls from the sky that is not quite snow, not quite rain, not even sleet, but frozen droplets that tinkle when they hit, almost like the tumbling of thin seashells.

Gary Kinder, Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea (New York: Grove Publishing, 1998), Kindle loc.6579

Snow days are OK

Winter is somewhat early this year. The chill is sporadic, as temperatures zoom up and down, but we’ve had snow flurries twice—well ahead of normal. The Atlanta newspaper trumpets on page one the threats of snow and ice: this southern city has little snow removal equipment, the roads are treacherously built in sinuous twists over the hills, and many of the drivers don’t know how to drive on snow. Having lived in Minnesota, I have seen life continue routinely through heavy snows, temperatures below zero, even blizzards. I am tempted to laugh at Atlanta’s panic, but in truth I think the southern approach is better: most Americans work too hard, never taking time to think about the meanings and values inherent (or missing) in their lives. If a light snow in an ill-equipped city forces us to stay at home once in a while so that we can ponder our lives, so much the better. Especially in the so-called professions, the practitioners work so obsessively that they have no time to reflect upon what they profess. What faith, what assumptions, what responsibilities, what values and deeper meanings do they see in their work?

Albert Howard Carter III, First Cut: A Season in the Anatomy Lab (New York: Picador USA, 1997), p. 295.

Shorter days—winter's coming!

In late June, when summer hasn't even kicked in and already the days are getting shorter, I am seized by a kind of epic desperation. On these days I am reminded of doing drugs, and reach instead for my decanter of coffee brandy. I am reminded of when, after doing drugs on a semi-regular basis, your terror of the come-down creeps closer and closer to the apex of your druggy glory, until the moment when you're nearing your happiest is also the moment most tinged with terror and apprehension because you're about to begin the long descent.

Heidi Julavits, "Maine," in Matt Weiland & Sean Wilsey eds., State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America (New York: HarperCollins, 2008)