Campus. October 27, 2020. Photo by Me.
I had no sooner published my last post (the one right before this). No sooner.
When I wrote that post, the temperature had just dropped that day. But the leaves were still on the trees and green. The stubborn types were rocking shorts and short sleeves like they were living a day behind and could still feel 80 degrees on their backs. I didn’t expect Winter, the real winter, for another month or so, the end of November or the beginning of December. That’s when the first snow hits, when day fades into night around 5 o’clock. Sleet, hail, packed ice, filthy snowdrifts, blizzards, snow storms. The full onslaught of winter. I didn’t expect anything but low temperatures and stiff winds this early.
In October.
But, yesterday morning, I woke up to a fine powder on the ground and the cruel reality of an early winter.
2020 is still shaping up to be one of the toughest years in decades.
An early snow could mean a heavy, hard winter: blizzards, torrential winds, painfully cold temperatures, dangerous roads, and even more dangerous drivers, drab, depressing skies, and it could linger for months, and be even longer for having begun so early.
I am not ready for it, completely unprepared. I haven’t ordered new wool socks yet, or dug out my school scarf. I need a new space heater. I’m out of chicken noodle soup; I used to keep at least five cans.
I hadn’t even made up a list of excuses for staying home.
Winter comes early this year. Why?
To put the icing on a memorable year? To make more people wish they had voted by mail?
I am not ready. I want to throw a tantrum but I’m afraid someone will hear me.
Everything I feared is right outside my door, right outside every door, waiting to clench its cold fist around my heart and squeeze it until spring.
Mark Earnest Johnson 