January 2014

I admit it, when I left for work this morning I was in a crappy mood. I had looked at my schedule for the day and I had six hours of meetings on the calendar. I had to work at the office today, ending a two week run of home-office productivity. I’ve never been one to fit into the “one size fits all” mould.

Driving into work I couldn’t bear the noise that was coming from the radio. Local stations, Sirius/XM, talk, music, nothing fit my mood. Honestly, there were only two things that could have put me in a better mood in that moment: 1. snuggled under the blankets for a few extra moments before working from home or 2. flying an airplane somewhere. Neither was bound to happen anytime soon.

I settled on driving to work in silence. I didn’t even talk to myself. There was no singing to the radio, no screeching at the political commentary I might have landed on, no, instead I just listened to my thoughts and the pounding of the Jeep tires on the wet pavement.

I exited the Thruway at the least used interchange on the roadway, went through the tolls and prepared to descend the hill and make the left-turn required to follow the back roads for the remaining portion of my commute. While the Thruway was wet, after all it was 51ºF at the time, the local roads were still covered with slush. I slid right through the intersection and was unable to bring the Jeep to a stop when I wanted to. The pilot training must be taking hold, because I just calmly herded the Jeep over the shoulder of the road and purposely ran through the rumble strip that is designed to keep motorists awake. The extra friction brought the Jeep to a stop.

I never panicked. I didn’t yell. There was no cursing. A couple of years ago, while driving the old Jeep to work I found myself sliding sideways headed toward a sign that proclaimed “EXIT 28”. In the middle of the skid I found time to yell “Shut Up!” at the radio and turned it off before finally getting the Jeep out of its skid. I didn’t have to yell this morning. There was no noise to distract me.

There’s a lot of chatter in our world today. Facebook notifications, Twitter updates, instant messages interrupting our training of thought, bing, bong, boo. I must be getting old because I want the noise to mean something. I don’t want frivolous things flung in my direction, if there’s going to be noise, it better have a purpose.

After bagging the idea of taking the back roads to work (after the skidding incident), I jumped back on the Thruway and stayed on the wet pavement that wasn’t slippery. It was a few extra miles out of my way but I still made it to work in plenty of time. The radio remained off. My mood softened.

Aside from the rhythmic pounding of the Jeep tires, the silence was golden.

So it has been 2014 for over 36 hours in these parts and there is much rejoicing in the land. We’ve been watching snow lightly fall since the New Year arrived. We have about a foot of snow on the back patio at the moment. We should have another foot of snow by this time tomorrow.

Suffice it to say, I’m not going to be able to fly for my next lesson this afternoon.

I don’t mind the snow but I do mind all the hysteria that surrounds it. I complain about this often and sometimes loudly, but I don’t remember the general population being so terrified of snowstorms back in the day. It was rare for school to be closed, we usually ended up with an early dismissal, and it was unheard of for a school to close the night before, but that’s common place now.

This morning I listened to the local radio station on my drive to the gym and the newscaster was telling everyone to stay off the roads today due to the snowstorm. She then said four inches of snow were expected. She encouraged listeners to call 911 if they felt they were in danger.

Now, I’m all for calling 911 if you’re in danger, but unless you’re a complete tool, I don’t see how one can get stranded in four inches of snow. Four feet of snow, I can see, but four inches of snow? Drive through it. If one uses common sense and prepares by having a hat and gloves and boots and a blanket and a bottle or two of water in their vehicle, and they don’t drive into what is obviously a dangerous area, chances are pretty good that you’re going to be able to make your commute just fine.

In fifth grade I remember being stuck at school until nearly 5:00 p.m. due to a snowstorm blowing through. (I remember being excited about the fact that I was see the classroom clocks at “5:00” since I had never seen that before and I have always been a huge geek). One by one the buses would come back from the preceding high school run, the principal would announce the bus number over the intercom and a few more students would be able to leave. Since we lived away from town and our bus went to the outer reaches of the district, bus 53 was one of the last buses to get called. We survived the ordeal just fine and we got home just as Dad was getting back from his day at the store. There were no hysterics. Mom was a little worried but she wasn’t a sobbing mess or anything. Common sense. That’s all that’s needed in these situations.

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of that anymore.

I glance out the window and see large snowflakes quietly and peacefully falling from the sky. There’s no wind blowing them around, no ice or sleet mixed in to spoil the fun, just beautiful snowflakes settling in for the winter. I find this to be absolutely beautiful. The camera on my iPhone 5 doesn’t do the moment justice, the closest I can come to capturing the beauty is to use my “real” camera. Luckily, it is close at hand.

Scenes like these, with the delicate beauty and soft calmness I rarely find elsewhere, remind me as to why I love living in Central New York. Sure, I dream of living in other places and I will probably live in another place someday, but only if I can find moments similar to this. Central New York will always be home.

This moment, this calmness, is a beautiful way to start a beautiful New Year.