Wednesday’s Theme Music

Mood: snowgo

Snow dilutes the light through the windows and blocks the solar tube and skylights, wholly changing the house’s ambiance. Yes, we’re part of the snowstorm holding the Pacific Northwest hostage on Wednesday, January 10, 2024, which is today. It’s 32 F now, as it has been for the last five hours. Snow continuously fell during that period, alternating the flakes’ speed, size, or density, but it falls nontheless. The road has been plowed a few times. I’ve seen one bird and no other animals out there. I hope the homeless are okay; the emergency shelters have been opened.

The snow is expected to yield to rain later. Looking out as a tow truck motors down the hill past my house, it looks like the snow is more sleetish. Snow is falling off tree branches, wires, and fences, so something is going on.

I’m happy, though, because the snowbank is climbing, part of the complicated, multi-faceted process for delivering us summer water.

My eyes yelp against the white-sheeted landscape’s intensity whenever I look out, like the snow is sucking up the light and then firing it back with a tenfold intensity. Sunglasses help but it feels odd wearing sunglasses in the house while looking out the window.

Les Neurons have loaded “Snowblind” by Black Sabbath from 1972 into the morning mental music stream (Trademark stuck). Lyrics easily return from when I listened to the album, Black Sabbath Vol 4 back in high school. Scott — a high school peer — gave it to me because he didn’t like it because it was too dark and brooding. “Kills my buzz,” he laughed with that light in his eyes. He was such a trip.

I understood what he meant, though. This song in particular felt like a downer with its plodding sound and semi-screeched lyrics. Still, they come back to mind with little problem: “My eyes are blind, but I can see. The snowflakes glisten on the trees. The sun no longer sets me free. I feel the snowflakes freezing me.” I sometimes sang them to myself countless times since learning them when walking in the snow in Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Korea, Germany, Oregon, and other places.

Stay positive, test negative, be strong, and lean forward. Coffee has come my way. Snow still falls, delivering fatter flakes to the four inches on the ground. Here’s the music. Cheers