Sun, clouds, rain, snow, wind, and a combination of all but the first struck against my windshield on the drive home. The sunlight (had I really seen it?) was a glimmer of memory from the school parking lot only ten minutes ago. I kept expecting hail or even graupel to fall (just to round out the list of precipitation types). Slush was forming on the side of the front window where the wipers raced to push the falling aqua, both liquid and fluffily crystalline.
I had chuckled last night when I saw snow falling at midnight, and now I had to laugh out loud. Mother Nature still rules supreme. Us humans have no might in the greater scheme of it all. I push back the irritation of the needy parent, the one who is not letting his daughter grow up taller than the wall of his nest. I let the frustrating indolence and inefficiency of certain of my students evaporate. I forget about the vying workplace personalities and my enervating list of things to do. Instead I listen to the susurration of the snow on my sleeves, breathe deeply, and enjoy the unanticipated beauty of the large, fluffy white flakes falling unruffledly from the gentle gainsboro grey May sky.
