Large clumps of snow gather on the screen of my home office window and careen perilously through the air outside. When I step just out of my door to take a video a few minutes prior, the wind lands a single flake in my hair at just the right angle for me to see from the corner of my eye with perfect clarity what shape it has taken, how many arms it has. It will melt before I could even think about capturing it in a photograph. I hurry back inside and bundle up as I head back up to my office. This old farmhouse doesn't have central air and heating, so a space heater, fingerless gloves, and a hot cup of coffee will have to keep me warm. It's a wintry landscape, magical despite my late winter loathing for all things icy.
It's April 16, 2020, and it's snowing in Western Iowa.
This is truly no grand revelation, given the chaos that is Midwestern weather. That said, I have to wonder how much this virus lockdown is going to change the way we live: weather & climate, work/life balance, politics, and the history of our era.
Time will tell...but, in the meantime, it's peaceful here today.
