I am despondent about the weather. No, I’m not writing about the slaying of another person in Minneapolis.
I am despondent about the cold and snow that have locked me into my home for a long weekend. No, I’m not writing about the presence of armed federal forces on the streets of U.S. cities turning their vast firepower on protesters protecting their neighbors.
And yet, I know that as much as the cold and snow trouble me, they will pass.
I know that warmer weather will come and the snow and cold and ice will melt. Please understand I am not using any metaphor here. I am not writing about our current administration in Washington, D.C., or outrage toward American immigration enforcement policies.
I’m writing about the weather caused by a nationwide storm, one that meteorologists call unprecedented.
And the weather will change. It can be tempting over a long weekend like this — with days of subfreezing temperatures behind you and days of subfreezing temperatures ahead — to believe otherwise. We suspect the chill will never retreat. Our fingers will always stiffen in the biting cold air outside. We will remain inside our homes wrapped in blankets and avoiding slippery roads. The world will spin as a we remain locked inside.
I’m definitely not saying that this works as a metaphor for our current political situation, when authoritarians in waiting stalk the hallways of the White House. I’m not saying it applies to vile lies spread about people including Renee Good and Alex Pretti by officials who yearn to crush political dissent and silence opposing voices.
I’m not saying either of those things. I’m dealing with the weather, and the irrational fear that bad weather will never change.
Even in the coldest temperatures, that’s not true.
The sun will come. It will shine. The snow will melt in into water and flow into drains and make its way to the river. The ice will retreat and disappear in water vapor that floats up into the atmosphere to create clouds.
No season lasts forever. Spring will come and the air will warm and the flowers bloom and the wheel turn. The rains will come and nourish green grass and trees, and world around us will flourish once again. No one who bets on winter lasting forever will win his or her wager.
Change always prevails. I write this knowing that words have limits. Thoughts from one opinion editor in Kansas can only do so much, even in this interconnected age. My fulminations and broadsides — against the weather of course, not anything else going on right now — might shift attitudes a percentage point or two. At most.
On the other hand, concrete actions help. Hardy souls can plow the roads and shovel sidewalks, check on elderly friends and family, help dig cars out of snow drifts. That helps. That clears the way for the next season, whenever it inevitably arrives.
If we learn anything from the weekend, let it be this. Change will come. Seasons will shift. Warmness will replace the chill. But we can also learn from the repetition. We can prepare ourselves for the inevitable changes. Knowing now how much cold, how much ice, how much snow can warp an entire region, we can be on watch in years to come.
For so long, many of us suggested that it can’t happen here. I refer to winter weather. Now we know better. Now we can pass that knowledge to the generations who follow.
Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate.
