A Texan in Winter.

It snowed in Portland today. A lot. I never grew up with snow and neither did anyone in Portland. It's still an event when it snows here. As I type there is probably about 5 inches on the ground and it's not showing any sign of melting for the next few days. This wouldn't be so bad, except this city is not equipped for snow. There is no salt on the roads, so they are just ice and us city-dwellers don't have snow chains so we just slide.

I went for a walk after I woke up this morning and headed up to Stumptown for a cup of coffee. This was, apparently, a common thought among many of my neighbors, as I neared the coffee shop more and more people started coming out of side streets and walking into the shop. It was a happening place.

Not having had snow as a regular occurrence when I grew up this reminded me of the handful of times I have walked in the snow. It was nice to think back on those times, wandering Nuernburg with my dad in the dead of winter, wandering the deserts of New Mexico by moonlight with the snow glowing, wandering the streets of my first Portland neighborhood in a winter snow, the first snow my freshman year of college when everyone emptied from their dorms and played in the snow at night. But this time I wandered alone. But I wasn't really sad about that. And that was nice. It was me and the snow. Fuck the rest of you. No offense.