Snow falling outside and cold air is floating through the courtyard below. My apartment is a reconfigured women's' shelter, with a gate blocking entry to the courtyard and two trees growing inside the brick and concrete enclosure at the middle of the two-story complex. This snowfall was supposed to be a heavy storm. Weather experts predicted from eight inches to 16 inches accumulation by this afternoon, but it's looking more like a gentle spray of snow than a drift-builder.
Tiny flakes of ice and snow are falling, driven sideways by a slight, cold breeze. It's a bust if it stays this way, far as I'm concerned. Jeez, people rushed the grocery stores Thursday and Friday, stocking up on water and matches and batteries and other perceived necessities, as if a major storm were boring down upon them. I've never seen the shelves at Wal-Mart so empty!
It's been a wintry week, though, and I've enjoyed that aspect of the passing time.
We had an ice storm last week through the weekend, with an inch or two of hard, slippery ice forming on the road, sidewalks, everything. And now this snowstorm is hovering overhead, making the area look like a winter postcard, if one looks in the right direction.
I feel like my life has reached another crossroads, this one closer to the sunset days than the sunrise.
I'm aging like many men, growing plump in the middle and slow in the brain, and it's really demoralizing and sad.
I will be changing my routine again, adding some stretching and exercises to the day's activities. My body is stiffening with age and it's not a pleasant sensation. Seems like, with every chapter in this life there's no respite, no peace, only continuous adjustments and striving to maintain a semblance of joy and curiosity. One must take what pleasure and insight that one can find from the flowing experiences that chain together a continuum that is one's life.