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First Snow

(image came from svenfoo.geekheim.de/)

Tricking us into thinking we just might possibly go a whole winter without her face, the snow leisurely drifted in, as I was driving forty blocks down Lyndale to a nature reserve for a friend's fiftieth birthday party. It was such a long wait and temperatures had been so near early spring that, I could hardly believe my eyes and kept thinking to myself that it would probably amount to nothing.

As we ate and entertained ourselves at the party, we were surrounded by walls of glass on several sides that let us gaze at the falling snow. It was deceitful. Clustered in the courtyard the snow had not mounted much--just enough to give us a pretty view.

Leaving to go home and banking on being able to go home a better way than I had come, which entailed winding my way through several highways that veered off from each other, I found a different picture. The road and all around were in several blankets of snow cushioning everything with a white brilliance that left poetry on one's tongue.

Praying that the signs were not covered in winter coats, I worked my way home successfully, but amazed. Cars raced to there destination--still not satisfied with the speed limit. Then there were the cautious ones like me that kept there distance and stayed in the slower lane as long as it was not too burdened for passage, which was sometimes the case.

Arriving closer to my destination where one highway veered off from the other again, the way had not been plowed nor melted down by exhausts, so I slowed down and started to brake for the stoplight way before my normal timing would have me do--sometimes you take your clues from life and leave habit behind, I think.

In the morning, I had to traverse the same last two roads. I was amazed that as I drove from one highway to the next everyone was going slower then they had the night before. I did not bluster my way through the fast lane, but took the guidance of those ahead of me. One person had not, and where the road curved and slowed to 35mph, he had gone off to the side, fortunately not into the fence and not in harms way, but he was stuck there. I thought about how many times we get ourselves stuck by not following the signposts around us. As I exited for my destination, I saw the road ahead was bumper to bumper. I could only guess what happened and recalled how it had been bumper to bumper the night before in the opposite direction and the cops speeding by us probably trying to get to the next exits and double back--another lesson. Sometimes you have to march ahead and then go back a few steps to get one's bearings, and fix what's damaged before kicking in to a higher gear.

I came back the same way as, and in the same direction as, I returned the previous night. This time as I exited off the first exit off the highway that veered to the right, my eye caught something to the left on further down on the highway that I had been traveling on which was now raised up from the road I had turned onto. There was a car spun around in the opposite direction and another quite damaged. The tow truck had just arrived and was trying to embrace his load. I remained thankful throughout the day.

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