Singing a different tune

I stepped away from my desk the other morning to see that the ground was covered in a soft white fluff of snow. When I went outside there was a slight chill and a stillness in the air, nothing seemed to move, as the flakes came slowly down to their resting place. For a brief moment, I stopped thinking about meetings and deadlines and responsibilities and I looked around me. I couldn’t help but marvel at the first snow of the year.

There’s something about the first snow. It’s crisp, clean and even a bit exciting. There’s mystery to it.

Now the snow didn’t last long, when I went to grab my lunch, I noticed quickly that the snow had stopped falling and what had fallen on the ground had melted. It was just your typical cold, rainy December day. It was all kind of drab. I laughed thinking about how my perspective had changed. I find it interesting how we take in things and how our thoughts drive us.

Photo by David Bartus by Pexels

How you look at things?

For example, if we were in late March, I’m not so sure I would’ve been as excited to wake up to that new snow. I would have been worried about the roads and having to go somewhere. I’d complain about the melting and the mud that would be created.

I would have ran quickly to grab my phone or turn on the TV or radio to find out the latest weather report. Of course, I would’ve been cursing those damn meteorologists for not giving us a better warning. I would’ve called my wife right away to make sure she got to work okay and would’ve checked like any good Pennsylvania resident that we had a week’s worth of milk or eggs or bread because God forgive us if we had to survive without, we might just not make it. (For the uninitiated, when it snows, those are the things everyone seems to run to the store for, before it gets too bad, even though storms here rarely last that long and roads are usually clear within a few hours. Do people in other areas do the same thing when it snows or rains there?)

Now, I like a little snow each year, but by March, I’m done. I’m beyond done. I’m ready to move right past March and April and move into spring and summer May and June. Oh, I could move South and one day I suspect I will, but for the time being, this is the “state of things in my world.”

It’s perspective. One day a little snow is welcomed, another it’s a pain in the you know where.

Tomato, tomahto

I’m interested often how our point of view or perspective changes. One minute we feel one thing, but then another minute, we feel something altogether different. One minute we call it a tomato, the next we call the same thing tomahto — two ways of calling something the same thing.

I see it a lot in sports. I’m relaxing on a Sunday watching American football and two teams that I don’t normally root for will come on TV. I noticed this in early November when the New York Giants played the Dallas Cowboys. I especially hate the Cowboys, so I found myself rooting for the Giants to win because a loss by the Cowboys would give my favorite team, the Philadelphia Eagles, a larger lead in the standings. (I’ve jinxed the Eagles, because now both the Giants and Cowboys are playing better than them.)

When something like this happens, it’s always a strange feeling. I regularly root against the Giants, but I still know a lot about the team, I remember games when they’ve beaten my team, and here I was willing them to victory like I’ve been a lifelong fan. Of course, they lost miserably to the hated Cowboys 49-17. (For the record, my fandom for them is very transitory, the moment I switched the channel, my Giants fandom, was over.)

Photo by Erik Karits by Pexels.

When cats and dogs come together

I’m no expert on perspective, but I think often it has to deal with our own self interests. I may not like something at first, but after I’ve been familiarized with it, I change my tune. I think of music that I might have not liked all that much the first time I heard it or even friends that I might not have known all that well at first, but over time, became closer.

We become more familiar and, yes, our perspective changes. So, yes, we got a little snow today. I’m excited. I’m like a little kid. Let’s hope I can keep some of that little kid inside of me a little later into the winter season.

Let’s hope!