Gratitude 9

I am grateful for the winter.  Yes, Gentle Reader, you did hear me correctly.  Now, notice that I did not say that I love the snow, or the slush, or the cold weather, or the ice, the inconvenience, the discomfort and the dangers of slipping, falling and ending up in hospital with a broken hip.  I said I am grateful for winter.

This is the important feature about gratitude.  It should have precious little to do with our personal druthers or likes and more to do with taking a longer, ontological view of things.  We need winter, whether we like it or not.  It shows that our climate is functioning well, being at a northern latitude; it assures us that regardless of the risks and threats of global warming and climate change, then we should feel a little bit reassured that this is a normal climatological occurrence, even if it seems a little abnormal for our normally balmy west coast climate.

On the other hand, we usually have a severe winter at least once every five to ten years.  Many of us in Vancouver and outlying areas are, of course, spoiled, soft and have an incredible sense of entitlement.  We tend to believe that we have a universal right to snowless winters, but for the mountains, so that moneyed tourists can spend the morning skiing and the afternoon on the golf course (or is that the morning on the golf course and the afternoon skiing?)

Be that as it may, the City of Victoria, which boasts even a milder climate than Vancouver, will not be conducting their annual flower count this February, given that snow has been covering the ground everywhere.  They will not be able to stick it so smugly to the rest of the country that will be languishing under layers of snow and ice till sometime in April.  This is something to be thankful for.

For us who live here, it really is an exercise in humility, and in learning to accept that even for the most hard-ass atheist, it is a matter of there but for the grace of God go you and I.  Learning to not hate the winter weather also carries its own reward.  Our eyes are suddenly opened to the innocent splendour of fresh-fallen snow beautifying every surface, natural and human-made, with its illusion of purity.  The cold air is fresh, invigorating and wholesome.  And we are still assured that it will all be gone in another few days, kick-starting our still early spring perhaps a couple of weeks later than usual.

One other bonus:  all this extra snow is going to fill the public reservoirs, which will be to our advantage should we be blessed this year with a particularly dry and hot summer.