NAVEL GAZING

It’s Tuesday after snow on Saturday; three days after the fact trees are still bending and breaking under the weight. Certainly some of the snow has gone away. My truck cover has taken the shape of its roof rack and it’s only about a foot deep. Yesterday its profile was flat and smooth. That says something considering this is mid-Missouri. The weather, it’s not changing and they like to brag that it changes every few hours. We’re going to have a cold spell. But you know: it will warm up and we’ll have mud. 

It’s been a while since I’ve been chafed by global warming, climate change deniers. I thought of that yesterday. Three or four years ago I would have heard cat calls about how local anomalies disqualify global patterns, “How can we have so much snow if the globe is warming?” They’ve softened their tone in light of overwhelming evidence to the contrary but still cling to the root belief: “It might be warming but human activity didn’t influence it.” The evidence is in on that too and it’s as compelling as the other. Global warming is accelerating at an unprecedented rate and, the only conceivable reason for the acceleration is human consumption of fossil fuel. Why beat on that dead horse again, it’s been done convincingly by researchers who value their credibility in the workplace more than an ideological commitment. I’m glad about that; that I haven’t had to condescend to middle school logic with grown up 3 year-olds but then I suppose it wasn’t about logic anyway. If one is committed to disbelief then what’s the point? 

There is a walking track on the gym balcony where I go to exercise. I walk faster than most, navigating my way around folks who are preoccupied with smart phones or walking in small groups. Today an older man, maybe my age, slipped up on me and we walked together for a while. We exchanged pleasantries and cruised along. He asked me something about the government and politics and I dodged it: “I don’t give it much thought.” Considering the demographics of our community, even evangelical, black christians want little or nothing to do with the current administration. I had no reason to think my newly acquired walk-mate would contradict that assumption. I just didn’t want to go there. He on the other hand might very well have seen my reluctance as some kind of passive support for the narcissist bigot with orange hair. It was not but he had no way of knowing that. I let him set the pace, matched it, staying out of everybody’s way. A man and woman of our generation, slow walking, much talking; we had to get past them about every other lap. Their conversation, in the bits and pieces we were privy to was generally critical and unsympathetic toward congress and the White House in particular. 

I split my workout between walking the track, cardio vascular work on the stair-stepper and inclined treadmill, then a round on the weight machines. My fast walking companion did his whole workout on the track so I bid him well and headed to my next station. Half an hour later I was near the track; my walk-mate had slowed down, paced himself with the slow-walk, fast-talk couple. They hadn’t gained any speed but they were having a spirited conversation. I thought, ‘I’m glad he found someone to meet his socializing need.’ I never would have been able to fill that hole. 

On the way home I noticed spots in intersections where snow melts last; snow had turned to ice. Making a turn was like following train tracks, keeping in the grooves, not wanting to hear ice against the under side of the car. For a while after it snows, everything looks better. Amazing what a clean coat of fresh snow does for the countryside. But it usually goes dirty before you can appreciate it. That’s the normal but this one is lagging behind. Three days and it’s still clean. I thought about that yesterday so I took my camera and went looking for photographs. The way snow was layered over every branch and limb made for wonderful edges and powerful contrasts. The problem was, there was no convenient, safe place to pull off the road. I had to find a wide spot, leave the emergency blinkers flashing and walk a ways. Passing snow plow drivers stopped to see if I needed help. I showed them my camera and that was good, they would leave and another one would stop. Then of course, the best spot to stand was up or down an embankment that was hip deep in snow. But once you have snow inside your socks and your pants are soaked up to the knees, it’s not so much an inconvenience as it is the price of doing business. 

Life is pretty good after all. I have the gym; who knows who you will meet or what they will want to talk about and the exercise is as good as you make it. I have my camera; it gives me a reason to pay attention, look closely, everywhere, all the time. Not all pictures are worth a thousand words but the more you take, the better you get. Some are worth wading through the snow. Then, my workshop is revamped, available, just waiting for me to make new saw dust. I have stuff to do and what would this life be without stuff to do? It won’t change the world but it does sustain me.