THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 11, 1996 TAG: 9601110336
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: CHARLISE LYLES
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
A special summer day - even in this raw, ear-biting cold - seems not too long ago, when a speedy ride on Interstate 264 slowed to a standstill as a thunderstorm wept on Earth.
Gradually, reluctantly, cars came to a halt. Some slicksters in snazzy rides tried to keep going. But a hard rain hurled in their faces. Soon, they, too, slowed. Wherever we were bound, we had to stop.
Buffeted by winds, my car held me safe, the radio tuned to some saxophonist blowing bittersweet songs.
For five minutes, Sister-girl Nature put on a flamboyant storm, blowing her winds from the west, perhaps laughing as she unleashed.
I watched along with other drivers whom I did not know, people with kids squawking in station wagons, outdoor types in RVs, an elderly man in a 1970s sedan, a Steve Martin-looking guy in a green convertible. Our lives, our schedules interrupted, we reluctantly accepted nature's gift, a moment of serenity and surrender.
Old Sister-girl had put us in our place. As I drove away, I felt an eerie kinship with the other drivers stranded with me.
Later, I shared my little epiphany with a friend.
``So what?'' he said, his brow furrowed considerably.
So much for my dime-store deep thought.
But as the Blizzard of '96 whipped white powder down on Virginia in record levels, my deep thought recurred.
Saturday evening, glistening white flakes like delicate frozen tears fell on the Chinese holly bush in my front yard. It covered the fur of that cranky, smoke-colored cat from around the corner, and the car that would refuse to start the next morning.
It's hard to hate snow. It's soooo pretty. So magical even when whipping us hard.
The world was silent and sweet, a sparkling bowl of granulated sugar. Until I saw cars lose control at stoplights, sliding 180 degrees on icy asphalt.
Again we all stopped. Roads closed. Schools. Offices. Institutions.
But joyful was our surrender.
On my block, a lone boy sat disappointed with Sunday's watery snow. His first-ever snowman stood nearby, lumpy, sloped to one side. But the boy's black eyes blazed with the anticipation of an as-yet unannounced day off from school.
Teachers spent it sledding and sweeping angel wings in the snow with their children. A rare and treasured break.
Others were snowed in with strangers at airports, train depots, hotels. And that feeling of kinship arose from mutual gratitude for nature's respite.
One that is so often impossible in the hustle of our busy lives fast-forwarded by technology.
Those computer programs and satellite linkups might improve our ability to track nature's moods, sometimes as harsh and inhumane as a hurricane, at others, as gentle and serene as snowflakes falling on a winter's night.
But in the end, we remain at her mercy, bowing to her demand that we take time out. by CNB