Blizzard Snow Quotes

Even the strongest blizzards start with a single snowflake.

Cold and silence. Nothing quieter than snow. The sky screams to deliver it, a hundred banshees flying on the edge of the blizzard. But once the snow covers the ground, it hushes as still as my heart.

Soon he’ll know the blizzard started with me.

That's what it's like in my head all the time, constant snow, constant weather patterns of all sorts - blizzards, cyclones.

There's an Edna St. Vincent Millay poem that's been rumbling around inside me ever since I first read it, and part of it goes: 'Blown from the dark hill hither to my door/ Three flakes, then four/ Arrive, then many more.' You can count the first three flakes, and the fourth. Then language fails, and you have to settle in and try to survive the blizzard

She smiled. I think it's just the snow. I think it makes people stop and think. Bell nodded. I hope it comes a blizzard then.

The Winter Woman is as wild as a blizzard, as fresh as new snow. While some see her as cold, she has a fiery heart under that ice-queen exterior. She likes the stark simplicity of Japanese art and the daring complexity of Russian literature. She prefers sharp to flowing lines, brooding to pouting, and rock and roll to country and western. Her drink is vodka, her car is German, her analgesic is Advil. The Winter Woman likes her men weak and her coffee strong. She is prone to anemia, hysteria, and suicide.

For God took a handful of blizzard snow, blew on it and created the horse.

Trees lose their leaves in blizzards like these.

The world is turned upside down, I love it. It's like we're in a snow globe and God decided he wanted to see a blizzard so he shook us all the fug up.

When it is winter and we must walk in the blizzard snow do not our fingers and toes whisper death  And when winter is at last over. . .can we not hear our bellies whisper death to us  In the dark don't we know  And when we are paralyzed by nightmares  We know what you are.  With our first cries we rail against you.  We see you in every drop of blood in every tear.

Snow as fine and grainy as sugar covered the windows in and sifted off to the floor and did not melt.

It's like we're in a snow globe and God decided he wanted to see a blizzard so he shook us all the fug up.

It snowed all week. Wheels and footsteps moved soundlessly on the street, as if the business of living continued secretly behind a pale but impenetrable curtain. In the falling quiet there was no sky or earth, only snow lifting in the wind, frosting the window glass, chilling the rooms, deadening and hushing the city. At all hours it was necessary to keep a lamp lighted, and Mrs. Miller lost track of the days: Friday was no different from Saturday and on Sunday she went to the grocery: closed, of course.

The greatest blizzards start with the finest snow.

Snow harder! Snow more! Snow blizzards galore! I can’t get enough Of the fluffy white stuff! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow a ton! Snow a heap! Snow ten feet deep! I wouldn’t cry If it snowed til July. Snow! Snow! Snow!

That's what Zombieland is: calm, quiet. It's the world after a blizzard, the peacefulness that comes with it, the muffled silence and the sense that nithig in the world is moving. It's beautiful, in its own way. Maybe we'd be better off. But how could anyone who's ever seen a summer - big explosions of green and skies lit up electric with splashy sunsets, a riot of flowers and wind that smells like honey - pick the snow?

Song of Upbringing" I infancy the snow that fell on me was like floss silk childhood the snow that fell on me was like sleet seventeen to nineteen the snow that fell on me dropped like hail twenty to twenty-two the snow that fell on me seemed like balls of ice twenty-three the snow that fell on me looked like a blizzard twenty-four the snow that fell on me became so mournful II the snow that falls on me falls like petals when the burning firewood makes a noise and the frozen sky darkens the snow that fell on me so delicate and lovely fell reaching out a hand the snow that fell on me was like tears that sink into a burning forehead to the snow that fell on me I offered heartfelt thanks and prayed to God that I would live a long life the snow that fell on me was so chaste

Worst of all was the blizzard. People from the east or west coasts of America may think they have seen a blizzard. Likely they have not. It is almost exclusively a phenomenon of the plains, and got its name on the plains. It entailed wind-driven snow so dense and temperatures so cold that anyone lost in them on the shelterless plains was as good as dead.

Even the strongest blizzard starts with a single snowflake.

one day you stepped in snow, the next in mud, water soaked in your boots and froze them at night, it was the next worst thing to pure blizzardry, it was weather that wouldn't let you settle.

Let's see where this leads us, this adventure with the thrum of the music and the blizzard of stagy snow...happy tears freezing to diamonds...let's go, let's go, hurry towards the happy ending....let's go together toward something extraordinary, and I start making plans, thinking we would get that far.

The day, a compunctious Sunday after a week of blizzards, had been part jewel, part mud. In the midst of my usual afternoon stroll through the small hilly town attached to the girls' college where I taught French literature, I had stopped to watch a family of brilliant icicles drip-dripping from the eaves of a frame house. So clear-cut were their pointed shadows on the white boards behind them that I was sure the shadows of the falling drops should be visible too. But they were not. ("The Vane Sisters")

Also, I kept thinking about Alex Fierro. You know, maybe just a little. Alex was a force of nature, like the snow thunder. She struck when she felt like it, depending on temperature differentials and storm patterns I couldn't possibly predict. She shook my foundations in a way that was powerful but also weirdly soft and constrained, veiled in blizzard. I couldn't assign any motives to her. She just did what she wanted. At least, that's how it felt to me.

I welcome the blizzard, with its ferocious winds and deep, drifting snow. This may be enough to keep the real wolves, also known as the Peacekeepers, from my door. A few days to think. To work out a plan. With Gale and Peeta and Haymitch all at hand. This blizzard is a gift.

Wintry it ain't- no complaints! Snowier: Storefronts are showier, light displays glowier. Shoppers are prowling, blizzard howling! Drifts a-heaping, lords a-leaping, Yule logs burning, gifts returning. Winds are keen for 2015!

Two days ago, birdsong filled the air, which smelled of promise and upcoming summer. So much for that. Instead, she awoke to another blizzard. Welcome to the Lowlands, where spring is merely a two-degree warmer extension of winter.

Thomas’s mouth dried up—he’d seen them face to face, remembered it all too well; he had to remind himself to breathe. The others in the room were still; no one made a sound. Fear seemed to hover in the air like a blizzard of black snow.

Fear seemed to hover in the air like a blizzard of black snow.

It fell like powdered sugar, brittle, yet airy and without direction as it covered the land under an unforgiving tomb.

Maybe it would be better if we didn't love. If we didn't lose, either. If we didn't get our hearts stomped on, shattered; if we didn't have to patch and repatch until we're like Frankenstein monsters, all sewn together and bound up by who knows what. If we could just float along, like snow. That's what Zombieland is: frozen, calm, quiet. It's the world after a blizzard, the peacefulness that comes with it, the muffled silence and the sense that nothing in the world is moving. It's beautiful, in it's own way. Maybe we'd be better off. But how could anyone who's ever seen a summer — big explosions of green and skies lit up electric with splashy sunsets, a riot of flowers and wind that smells like honey — pick the snow?

there grew up around the campfires stories of a great silver stallion seen galloping over wind-packed snow way up on the Ramshead Range; of a ghost horse that drank at the Crackenback River; of a horse that all men thought was dead appearing in a blizzard at Dead Horse hut and vanishing again; of the wild stallion cry that could only be Thowra’s. But no man knew where the son of Bel Bel roamed

Instead of the macho, trigger-happy man our culture has perversely wanted him to be, the cowboy is more apt to be convivial, quirky, and softhearted. To be "tough" on a ranch has nothing to do with conquests and displays of power. More often than not, circumstances - like the colt he's riding or an unexpected blizzard - are overpowering him. It's not toughness but "toughing it out" that counts. In other words, this macho, cultural artifact the cowboy has become is simply a man who possesses resilience, patience, and an instinct for survival. "Cowboys are just like a pile of rocks - everything happens to them. They get climbed on, kicked, rained and snowed on, scuffed up by wind. Their job is 'just to take it,' " one old-timer told me.

I was a crazy creature with a head full of carnival spangles until I was thirty, and then the only man I ever really cared for stopped waiting and married someone else. So in spite, in anger at myself, I told myself I deserved my: fate for not having married when the best chance was at hand. I started traveling. My luggage was snowed under blizzards of travel stickers. I have been alone in Paris, alone in Vienna, alone in London, and all in all, it is very much like being alone in Green Town, Illinois. It is, in essence, being alone. Oh, you have plenty of time to think, improve your manners, sharpen your conversations. But I sometimes think I could easily trade a verb tense or a curtsy for some company that would stay over for a thirty-year weekend.

Jack Frost hibernates from March to November, dreaming snowflake designs to share in December. With glittering breath, snowstorms, and blue blizzards, lakes made of crystal, he’s an icy wizard! People assume winter will be harsh, cold, and cruel and that Jack must be a wicked, cold-weather ghoul. But he’s truly an artist, known as Bringer of Ice, and although his heart is cold, he’s really quite nice.

Snow not falling but flying sidewise, and sudden, not signaled by the slow curdling of clouds all day and a flake or two drifting downward, but rushing forward all at once as though sent for. (The blizzard of '36 had looked like that.) And filling up the world's concavities, pillowing up in the gloaming, making night light with its whiteness, and then falling still in every one's dreams, falling for pages and pages... ("Novelty")

Alex was a force of nature, like the snow thunder. She struck when she felt like it, depending on temperature differentials and storm patterns I couldn’t possibly predict. She shook my foundations in a way that was powerful but also weirdly soft and constrained, veiled in blizzard. I couldn’t assign any motives to her. She just did what she wanted.

I think it's just the snow. I think it makes people stop and think. Bell nodded. I hope it comes a blizzard then.

It’s like we’re in a snow globe and God decided he wanted to see a blizzard so he shook us all

I started traveling. My luggage was snowed under blizzards of travel stickers. I have been alone in Paris, alone in Vienna, alone in London, and all in all, it is very much like being alone in Green Town, Illinois. It is, in essence, being alone. Oh, you have plenty of time to think, improve your manners, sharpen your conversations. But I sometimes think I could easily trade a verb tense or a curtsy for some company that would stay over for a thirty-year weekend.

Day one, the van broke down. It was so cold the accelerator cable froze, so when Tony [Iommi] put his foot down it snapped in half. Which meant we were stranded in the middle of f**king nowhere, halfway to Copenhagen. There was a blizzard outside, but Tony said it was my job – as the band’s ‘public representative’ – to go and find some help. So out I walked into this field, snow blowing into my face, two icicles of snot hanging out of my nose, until finally I saw the lights of a farmhouse up ahead. Then I fell into a trench. After finally pulling myself out of the f**king thing, I waded through the snow until I reached the front door, then knocked loudly. ‘Halløj?’ said the big, red-faced Eskimo bloke who opened the door. ‘Oh, thank f**k,’ I said. [...] ‘Halløj?’ I didn’t know any Danish, so I pointed towards the road, and said, ‘Van. El kaputski. Ya?'

It became legend that no one should wander too close to the sorceress's enchanted forest or she would send forth a blizzard, causing them to lose their way and be caught in the land of ice and snow for all time.

On my bedside table is a snow globe with a winterscape inside. Church, park bench, girl standing shin-deep in snow. Tip the snow globe over and a blizzard of slow snow falls over church and bench and girl. What is it about snow globes that makes them fascinating and terrifying at once? My heart lurches at the thought of the snow-globe girl waiting endlessly, with only the hope of a new snow blizzard to settle on her mantle when the next person tips her snow-globe world over. Not a gust of breeze may ruffle her skirt, not a bird may perch atop the steeple. The only way out of a snow globe is by shattering the glass dome that is its sky.

The blizzard seemed to be dying down, and it was now possible to enjoy the sight of the buildings and embankments and bridges smothered in the diamond-dusted whiteness. There's always something soothing in the snow, thought Gabriel, a promise of happiness and absolution, of a new start on a clean sheet. Snow redesigned the streets with hints of another architecture, even more magnificent, more fanciful than it already was, all spires and pinnacles on pale palaces of pearl and opal. All that New Venice should have been reappeared through its partial disappearance. It was as if the city were dreaming about itself and crystallizing both that dream and the ethereal unreality of it. He wallowed in the impression, badly needing it right now, knowing it would not last as he hobbled nearer to his destination.

Hannah shows up around five in a thick parka with a fur hood and bright red mittens. The last I checked, there wasn’t a speck of snow on the ground, but now I’m wondering if I somehow slept through a blizzard when I was taking my catnap. “Did you just fly in from Alaska?

They sat in the little diningroom and ate. She'd put on music, a violin concerto. The phone didnt ring. Did you take it off the hook? No, she said. Wires must be down. She smiled. I think it's just the snow. I think it makes people stop and think. Bell nodded. I hope it comes a blizzard then. Do you remember the last time it snowed here? No, I cant say as I do. Do you? Yes I do. When was it. It'll come to you. Oh. She smiled. They ate.

It was an eight-hour drive from New York to Bar Harbor, Maine. Sleet and snow pounded the highway. Annabeth, Thalia, and I hadn't seen each other in months, but between the blizzard and the thought of what we were about to do, we were too nervous to talk much. Except for my mom. She talks more when she's nervous. By the time we finally got to Westover Hall, it was getting dark, and she'd told Annabeth and Thalia every embarrassing baby story there was to tell about me.

It was one of the worst winters in Texas and Western history, when cattle perished like flies in great blizzards and snow fell on San Francisco and LA.

To Ilene Cooper, who has guided me through so many blizzards.

The months came and went, and back and forth they twisted through the uncharted vastness, where no men were and yet where men had been if the Lost Cabin were true. They went across divides in summer blizzards, shivered under the midnight sun on naked mountains between the timber line and the eternal snows, dropped into summer valleys amid swarming gnats and flies, and in the shadows of glaciers picked strawberries and flowers as ripe and fair as any the Southland could boast. In the fall of the year they penetrated a weird lake country, sad and silent, where wild- fowl had been, but where then there was no life nor sign of life— only the blowing of chill winds, the forming of ice in sheltered places, and the melancholy rippling of waves on lonely beaches.

And then instead of going on to Arusha they turned left, he evidently figured that they had the gas, and looking down he saw a pink sifting cloud, moving over the ground, and in the air, like the first snow in a blizzard, that comes from nowhere, and he knew the locusts were coming up from the South. Then they began to climb and they were going to the East it seemed, and then it darkened and they were in a storm, the rain so thick it seemed like flying through a water- fall, and then they were out and Compie turned his head and grinned and pointed and there, ahead, all he could see, as wide as all the world, great, high, and unbelievably white in the sun, was the square top of Kilimanjaro

Hawthorne wanted snow to symbolize cold, that's what I think. Cold and silence. Nothing quieter than snow. The sky screams to deliver it, a hundred banshees flying on the edge of the blizzard. But once the snow covers the ground, it hushes as still as my heart.

For soon the leaves, Having gone black, would fall, and the annulling snow Would pillow the walk, and we, with shovels in hand, would meet, Bow, and scrape the sidewalk clean. What else would there be This late in the day for us but desire to make amends And start again, the sun’s compassion as it disappears.

Here's a mountain, hard of hearing, That's sad-hearted and needs cheering, So my duty is to listen to all sounds that Nature makes, So the hill won't get uneasy— Get to coughing, or get sneezy— For this monster bump, when frightened, is quite liable to quakes. "You can hear a bell that's ringing; I can feel some people's singing; But a mountain isn't sensible of what goes on, and so When I hear a blizzard blowing Or it's raining hard, or snowing, I tell it to the mountain and the mountain seems to know. "Thus I benefit all people While I'm living on this steeple, For I keep the mountain steady so my neighbors all may thrive.

September Day sloshed another half cup of coffee into the giant #1-Bitch mug, and glared out the frosty breakfast nook windows. North Texas didn’t get snow. That’s why she’d moved back home—well, one of several reasons. She shivered, relishing the warmth of the beverage, and toasted the storm with a curse. “Damn false advertising.” Her cat Macy meowed agreement. The blizzard drove icy wind through cracks in the antique windows and made the just-in-case candles on the dark countertop sputter. She pulled the fuzzy bathrobe closer around her neck. Normally the kitchen’s stained glass spilled peacock-bright color into the kitchen.

The Merry Chrismouse by Stewart Stafford What a time for the merry Chrismouse, Making toys in his workshop/house, Everyone contributes, even his spouse, With Christmas cheer, no one will douse. A sprig of holly for a present tree, Blizzard snow is grated cheese, The kindly rodent set to please, When he comes on Christmas Eve. Nuts and seeds on their button table, Playing games and telling fables, Discarded tinsel on the wall of gable, In midwinter's icy spell unstable. A time for amnesia that felines exist, Kindness and joy at their fingertips, Baby mice excitedly make lists, To have many gifts when they insist. © Stewart Stafford, 2021. All rights reserved.

The blizzard, created when an enormous trough of cold air rushing in from the Arctic had met up with an equally enormous influx of warm, wet air from the gulf, gobbled up everything in its path. The collision generated a force of energy no one could remember seeing in their lifetimes, but that all would talk about with wonder until the day they died.

one night when I was little, I woke to a blizzard outside. I was five or six and didn’t know things ended. I thought the snow would continue to the sky’s brim—then beyond, touching god’s fingertips as he dozed in his reading chair, the equations scattered across the floor of his study. That by morning we would all be sealed inside a blue-white stillness and no one would have to leave. Ever.

After thousands of years, the ray-gun reached Earth. It fell from the sky like a meteor; it grew hot enough to glow, but it didn’t burn up. The ray-gun fell at night during a blizzard. Traveling thousands of miles an hour, the ray-gun plunged deep into snow-covered woods. The snow melted so quickly that it burst into steam. The blizzard continued, unaffected. Some things can’t be harmed, even by ray-guns.

Jason grins. “I’d never miss your birthday. Remember last year?” “Ugh! I thought I’d never thaw out after we went skiing in a blizzard. We were stranded for three days in that cabin we found in the woods.” “Aw, come on, you didn’t even get frostbite. I took care of you.” “At least I didn’t end up with any broken limbs. That time.” “I still can’t believe we went snow-boarding on East Pillar Mountain Loop. That’s a tough trail, and then you broke your arm slipping in the parking lot on the way to the truck.” My muscles were exhausted, and carrying my board on my shoulder, I wasn’t watching where I was going. I didn’t see the patch of ice. “Remember when you took me spelunking?” “I had no idea that bear was in there.” “I can’t remember ever being that scared.” “But it was fun! Come on. We can’t break tradition.

With the onset of successive days of high winds and snow blizzards, the battle of Ypres faded away, leaving both sides to hold their blood-soaked positions. The most significant territorial outcome was that the Germans had gained the high ground along the Messines ridge, and held it until June 1917. But they had suffered 80,000 casualties around Ypres, many regiments losing two-thirds of their strength or even more. A German wrote home: ‘I have been living through days that defy imagination. I should never have thought men could stand it … Our 1st battalion, which has fought with unparalleled bravery, is reduced from 1200 men to 194. God grant that I may see you again soon and that this horror may soon be over.’ The writer was fortunate enough to be taken prisoner soon afterwards.

Hey, Hiro," the black-and-white guy says, "you want to try some Snow Crash?" A lot of people hang around in front of The Black Sun saying weird things. You ignore them. But this gets Hiro's attention. Oddity the first: The guy knows Hiro's name. But people have ways of getting that information. It's probably nothing. The second: This sounds like an offer from a drug pusher. Which would be normal in front of a Reality bar. But this is the Metaverse. And you can't sell drugs in the Metaverse, because you can't get high by looking at something. The third: The name of the drug. Hiro's never heard of a drug called Snow Crash before. That's not unusual -- a thousand new drugs get invented each year, and each of them sells under half a dozen brand names. But a "snow crash" is computer lingo. It means a system crash -- a bug -- at such a fundamental level that it frags the part of the computer that controls the electron beam in the monitor, making it spray wildly across the screen, turning the perfect gridwork of pixels into a gyrating blizzard. Hiro has seen it happen a million times. But it's a very peculiar name for a drug. The thing that really gets Hiro's attention is his confidence. He has an utterly calm, stolid presence. It's like talking to an asteroid. Which would be okay if he were doing something that made the tiniest little bit of sense. Hiro's trying to read some clues in the guy's face, but the closer he looks, the more his shifty black-and-white avatar seems to break up into jittering, hardedged pixels. It's like putting his nose against the glass of a busted TV. It makes his teeth hurt. "Excuse me," Hiro says. "What did you say?

The reason we were with Mama that day was because it was a snow day. School was canceled, but we were too little to stay alone in our apartment while Mama went to work—which she did, through snow and sleet and probably also earthquakes and Armageddon. She muttered, stuffing us into our snowsuits and boots, that it didn’t matter if she had to cross a blizzard to do it, but God forbid Ms. Mina had to spread the peanut butter on her own sandwich bread. In fact the only time I remember Mama taking time off work was twenty-five years later, when she had a double hip replacement, generously paid for by the Hallowells. She stayed home for a week, and even after that, when it didn’t quite heal right and she insisted on returning to work, Mina found her tasks to do that kept her off her feet. But when I was little, during school vacations and bouts of fever and snow days like this one, Mama would take us with her on the B train downtown. Mr.

At noontime in midsummer, when the sun is at its highest and everything is in a state of embroiled repose, flashes may be seen in the southern sky. Into the radiance of daylight come bursts of light even more radiant. Exactly half a year later, when the fjord is frozen over and the land buried in snow, the very same spirit taunts creation. At night cracks in the ice race from one end of the fjord to the other, resounding like gunshots or like the roaring of a mad demon. The peasants dig tunnels from their door through the drifts over to the cow shed. Where are the trolls and the elves now, and where are the sounds of nature? Even the Beast may well be dead and forgotten. Life itself hangs in suspension - existence has shrunk to nothingness. Now it is only a question of survival. The fox thrashes around in a blizzard in the oak thicket and fights his way out, mortally terrified. It is a time of stillness. Hoarfrost lies in a timeless shroud over the fjord. All day long a strange, sighing sound is heard from out on the ice. It is a fisherman, standing alone at his hole and spearing eel. One night it snows again. The air is sheer snow and the wind a frigid blast. No living creature is stirring. Then a rider comes to the crossing at Hvalpsund. There is no difficulty in getting over­ - he does not even slacken his speed, but rides at a brisk trot from the shore out onto the ice. The hoofbeats thunder beneath him and the ice roars for miles around. He reaches the other side and rides up onto the land. The horse — a mighty steed not afraid to shake its shanks - cleaves the storm with neck outstretched. The blizzard blows the rider's ashen cape back and he sits naked, with his bare bones sticking out and the snow whistling about his ribs. It is Death that is out riding. His crown sits on three hairs and his scythe points triumphantly backward. Death has his whims. He takes it into his head to dis­mount when he sees a light in the winter night. He gives his horse a slap on the haunch and it leaps into the air and is gone. For the rest of the way Death walks like a carefree man, sauntering absentmindedly along. In the snow-streaked night a crow is sitting on a wayside branch. Its head is much too large for its body. Its beady eyes sparkle when it sees the wanderer's familiar face, and its cawing turns into silent laughter as it throws its beak wide open, with its spear-like tongue sticking far out. It seems almost ready to fall off the branch with its laughter, but it keeps on looking at Death with consuming merriment. Death moves on. Suddenly he finds himself beside a man. He raps the man on the back with his fingers and leaves him lying there. There is a light. Death keeps his eye on the light and walks toward it. He moves into the shaft of light and labors his way over a frozen field. But when he comes close enough to make out the house a strange fervor grips him. He has finally come home - yes, this has been his true home from the beginning. Thank goodness he has now found it again after so much difficulty. He goes in, and a solitary old couple make him welcome. They cannot know that he is anything more than a traveling tradesman, spent and sick. He lies down quickly on the bed without a word. They can see that he is really far gone. He lies on his back while they move about the room with the candle and chat. He forgets them. For a long time he lies there, quiet but awake. Finally there are a few low moans, faltering and tentative. He begins to cry, and then quickly stops. But now the moans continue, becoming louder, and then going over to tearless sobs. His body arches up, resting only on head and heels. He stares in anguish at the ceiling and screams, screams like a woman in labor. Finally he collapses, and his cries begin to subside. Little by little he falls silent and lies quiet.

A small smudge over there—the bird cruised down to see, hopeful, hungry. But he was disappointed; the smudge did not move. For it was an arm, sticking out of the snow, attached to a body buried beneath. Another odd blot of lifelessness, another, another—the bird took it all in from his aerial vantage point. A yellow hat atop a grey head, eyes frozen shut. A hand, poking out of a drift; a child’s hand, so small, so white, a deathly white, paler than the snow. A wagon wheel, a pale blue dress fluttering out of its spokes, and inside that dress, a lifeless female body. Clothing fluttered, moving, tricking the hawk time and again into thinking it had found its breakfast. Clothing blown off bodies that were now naked to the elements, like the one over there, only a few heartbreaking steps away from a barn. And more small hands, feet, faces upturned, eyes shut tight. That deathly pallor, blue grey against the dazzling white snow. The hawk turned northward, hoping for better hunting grounds. But he was doomed to be disappointed on this cold, sunny morning.

Then he tired. He turned his back to the blizzard and stopped fighting it. Not until then did Moomintroll notice that the wind felt warm. It carried him along into the whirling snow, it made him feel light and almost like flying. "I'm nothing but air and wind, I'm part of the blizzard," Moomintroll thought and let himself go. "It's almost like last summer. You first fight the waves, then you turn around and ride the surf, sailing along like a cork amont the little rainbows of the foam, and land laughing and just a little frightened in the sand." Moomintroll spread out his arms and flew. "Frighten me if you can," he thought happily. "I'm wise to you now. You're no worse than anything else when one gets to know you. Now you won't be able to pull my leg anymore." And the winder danced him all along the snowy shore, until he stumbled across the snowed-up landing stage and plowed his nose through a snowdrift. When he looked up, he saw a faint, warm light. It was the window of the bathing house. "Oh, I'm saved," Moomintroll said tot himself, a little crestfallen. "It's a pity that exciting things always stop happening when you're not afraid of them anymore and would like to have a little fun.

Still dark. The Alpine hush is miles deep. The skylight over Holly’s bed is covered with snow, but now that the blizzard’s stopped I’m guessing the stars are out. I’d like to buy her a telescope. Could I send her one? From where? My body’s aching and floaty but my mind’s flicking through the last night and day, like a record collector flicking through a file of LPs. On the clock radio, a ghostly presenter named Antoine Tanguay is working through Nocturne Hour from three till four A.M. Like all the best DJs, Antoine Tanguay says almost nothing. I kiss Holly’s hair, but to my surprise she’s awake: “When did the wind die down?” “An hour ago. Like someone unplugged it.” “You’ve been awake a whole hour?” “My arm’s dead, but I didn’t want to disturb you.” “Idiot.” She lifts her body to tell me to slide out. I loop a long strand of her hair around my thumb and rub it on my lip. “I spoke out of turn last night. About your brother. Sorry.” “You’re forgiven.” She twangs my boxer shorts’ elastic. “Obviously. Maybe I needed to hear it.” I kiss her wound-up hair bundle, then uncoil it. “You wouldn’t have any ciggies left, perchance?” In the velvet dark, I see her smile: A blade of happiness slips between my ribs. “What?” “Use a word like ‘perchance’ in Gravesend, you’d get crucified on the Ebbsfleet roundabout for being a suspected Conservative voter. No cigarettes left, I’m ’fraid. I went out to buy some yesterday, but found a semiattractive stalker, who’d cleverly made himself homeless forty minutes before a whiteout, so I had to come back without any.” I trace her cheekbones. “Semiattractive? Cheeky moo.” She yawns an octave. “Hope we can dig a way out tomorrow.” “I hope we can’t. I like being snowed in with you.” “Yeah well, some of us have these job things. Günter’s expecting a full house. Flirty-flirty tourists want to party-party-party.” I bury my head in the crook of her bare shoulder. “No.” Her hand explores my shoulder blade. “No what?” “No, you can’t go to Le Croc tomorrow. Sorry. First, because now I’m your man, I forbid it.” Her sss-sss is a sort of laugh. “Second?” “Second, if you went, I’d have to gun down every male between twelve and ninety who dared speak to you, plus any lesbians too. That’s seventy-five percent of Le Croc’s clientele. Tomorrow’s headlines would all be BLOODBATH IN THE ALPS AND LAMB THE SLAUGHTERER, and the a vegetarian-pacifist type, I know you wouldn’t want any role in a massacre so you’d better shack up”—I kiss her nose, forehead, and temple—“with me all day.” She presses her ear to my ribs. “Have you heard your heart? It’s like Keith Moon in there. Seriously. Have I got off with a mutant?” The blanket’s slipped off her shoulder: I pull it back. We say nothing for a while. Antoine whispers in his radio studio, wherever it is, and plays John Cage’s In a Landscape. It unscrolls, meanderingly. “If time had a pause button,” I tell Holly Sykes, “I’d press it. Right”—I press a spot between her eyebrows and up a bit—“there. Now.” “But if you did that, the whole universe’d be frozen, even you, so you couldn’t press play to start time again. We’d be stuck forever.” I kiss her on the mouth and blood’s rushing everywhere. She murmurs, “You only value something if you know it’ll end.

And the life of the natives consists of work; of starvation, cold, and cunning. This work, for those unable to push others out of the way and set themselves up in a soft spot, is that selfsame general work which raises socialism up out of the earth, and drives us down into the earth ... During the war years, on war rations, the camp inmates called the three weeks at logging 'dry execution.' You come to hate this forest, this beauty of the earth, whose praises have been sung in verse and prose ... As for our cursed Archipelago, it was eternally covered with snow and the blizzards eternally raged over it ... [To] distinguish between the nuances of the various paths to death ... sometimes called scurvy, sometimes pellagra, sometimes alimentary dystrophy ... How the last-leggers, jealously watching their competitors ... stand duty at the kitchen porch waiting for them to bring out the slops in the dishwater. How they throw themselves on it, and fight with one another, seeking a fish head, a bone, vegetable parings. And how one last-legger dies, killed in that scrimmage. In our glorious fatherland ...the most important and boldest books are never read by contemporaries ... And thus it is that I am writing this book solely from a sense of obligation - because too many stories and recollections have accumulated in my hands and I cannot allow them to perish. I do not expect to see it in print anywhere with my own eyes; and I have little hope that those who managed to drag their bones out of the Archipelago will ever read it; and I do not at all believe that it will explain the truth of our history in time for anything to be corrected ...

Between 2003 and 2008, Iceland’s three main banks, Glitnir, Kaupthing and Landsbanki, borrowed over $140 billion, a figure equal to ten times the country’s GDP, dwarfing its central bank’s $2.5 billion reserves. A handful of entrepreneurs, egged on by their then government, embarked on an unprecedented international spending binge, buying everything from Danish department stores to West Ham Football Club, while a sizeable proportion of the rest of the adult population enthusiastically embraced the kind of cockamamie financial strategies usually only mooted in Nigerian spam emails – taking out loans in Japanese Yen, for example, or mortgaging their houses in Swiss francs. One minute the Icelanders were up to their waists in fish guts, the next they they were weighing up the options lists on their new Porsche Cayennes. The tales of un-Nordic excess are legion: Elton John was flown in to sing one song at a birthday party; private jets were booked like they were taxis; people thought nothing of spending £5,000 on bottles of single malt whisky, or £100,000 on hunting weekends in the English countryside. The chief executive of the London arm of Kaupthing hired the Natural History Museum for a party, with Tom Jones providing the entertainment, and, by all accounts, Reykjavik’s actual snow was augmented by a blizzard of the Colombian variety. The collapse of Lehman Brothers in late 2008 exposed Iceland’s debts which, at one point, were said to be around 850 per cent of GDP (compared with the US’s 350 per cent), and set off a chain reaction which resulted in the krona plummeting to almost half its value. By this stage Iceland’s banks were lending money to their own shareholders so that they could buy shares in . . . those very same Icelandic banks. I am no Paul Krugman, but even I can see that this was hardly a sustainable business model. The government didn’t have the money to cover its banks’ debts. It was forced to withdraw the krona from currency markets and accept loans totalling £4 billion from the IMF, and from other countries. Even the little Faroe Islands forked out £33 million, which must have been especially humiliating for the Icelanders. Interest rates peaked at 18 per cent. The stock market dropped 77 per cent; inflation hit 20 per cent; and the krona dropped 80 per cent. Depending who you listen to, the country’s total debt ended up somewhere between £13 billion and £63 billion, or, to put it another way, anything from £38,000 to £210,000 for each and every Icelander.

This dance was the dance of death, and they danced it for George Buffins, that they might be as him. They danced it for the wretched of the earth, that they might witness their own wretchedness. They danced the dance of the outcasts for the outcasts who watched them, amid the louring trees, with a blizzard coming on. And, one by one, the outcast outlaws raised their heads to watch and all indeed broke out in laughter but it was a laughter without joy. It was the bitter laugh one gives when one sees there is no triumph over fate. When we saw those cheerless arabesques as of the damned, and heard that laughter of those trapped in the circles of hell, Liz and I held hands, for comfort. They danced the night into the clearing, and the outlaws welcomed it with cheers. They danced the perturbed spirit of their master, who came with a great wind and blew cold as death into the marrow of the bones. They danced the whirling apart of everything, the end of love, the end of hope; they danced tomorrows into yesterdays; they danced the exhaustion of the implacable present; they danced the deadly dance of the past perfect which fixes everything fast so it can’t move again; they danced the dance of Old Adam who destroys the world because we believe he lives forever. The outlaws entered into the spirit of the thing with a will. With ‘huzzahs’ and ‘bravos’, all sprang up and flung themselves into the wild gavotte, firing off their guns. The snow hurled wet, white sheets in our faces, and the wind took up the ghastly music of the old clowns and amplified it fit to drive you crazy. Then the snow blinded us and Samson picked us up one by one and slung us back in that shed and leaned up hard against the door, forcing it closed against the tempest with his mighty shoulders. Though bullets crashed into the walls and the wind came whistling through the knotholes and picked up burning embers from the fire, hurling them about until we thought we might burn to death in the middle of the snow and ice, the shed held firm. It rocked this way and that way and it seemed at any moment the roof might be snatched away, but this little group of us who, however incoherently, placed our faiths in reason, were not exposed to the worst of the storm. The Escapee, however, faced with this insurrection of militant pessimism, turned pale and wan and murmured to himself comforting phrases of Kropotkin, etc., as others might, in such straits, recite the rosary. When the storm passed, as pass it did, at last, the freshly fallen snow made all as new and put the camp fire out. Here, there was a shred of scarlet satin and, there, Grik’s little violin with the strings broken but, of the tents, shacks, muskets and cuirasses of the outlaws, the clowns and the clowns themselves, not one sight, as if all together had been blown off the face of the earth.

Lily Thomas lay in bed when the alarm went off on a snowy January morning in Squaw Valley. She opened her eyes for just an instant and saw the thick snow swirling beyond the windows of the house her father had rented, and for a fraction of an instant, she wanted to roll over and go back to sleep. She could hear the dynamite blasts in the distance to prevent avalanches, and just from a glance, she knew what kind of day it was. You could hardly see past the windows in the heavy blizzard, and she knew that if the mountain was open, it wouldn’t be for long. But she loved the challenge of skiing in heavy snow. It would be a good workout, and she didn’t want to miss a single day with one of her favorite instructors, Jason Yee.

Generally it is only in times of extreme need that one hunts caribou in a blizzard — not that nine tenths of the blizzards in the Arctic need keep a healthy man indoors; it is merely that the drifting snow (even when you can see as far as two hundred yards) diminishes many times over the chance you have of finding game.

You’re all so spoiled you think a measly meter or so of snow is a blizzard!

It was snowing when I got off the bus at Flax Hill. Not quite regular snowfall, not exactly a blizzard. This is how it was: The snow came down heavily, settled for about a minute, then the wind moved it - more rolled it, really - onto another target. One minute you were covered in snow, then it sped off sideways, as if a brisk, invisible giant had taken pity and brushed you down.

They spent three more long days in the whitened mountain ash trees on the whitened bay. Tatiana baked pies in Nellie’s big kitchen. Alexander read all the papers and magazines from stem to stern and talked post-war politics to Tatiana and Jimmy, and even to indifferent Nellie. In Nellie’s potato fields, Alexander built snowmen for Anthony. After the pies were in the oven, Tatiana came out of the house and saw six snowmen arrayed like soldiers from big to little. She tutted, rolled her eyes and dragged Anthony away to fall down and make angels in the snow instead. They made thirty of them, all in a row, arrayed like soldiers. On the third night of winter, Anthony was in their bed restfully asleep, and they were wide awake. Alexander was rubbing her bare buttocks under her gown. The only window in their room was blizzarded over. She assumed the blue moon was shining beyond. His hands were becoming very insistent. Alexander moved one of the blankets onto the floor, silently; moved her onto the blanket, silently; laid her flat onto her stomach, silently, and made love to her in stealth like they were doughboys on the ground, crawling to the frontline, his belly to her back, keeping her in a straight line, completely covering her tiny frame with his body, clasping her wrists above her head with one hand. As he confined her, he was kissing her shoulders, and the back of her neck, and her jawline, and when she turned her face to him, he kissed her lips, his free hand roaming over her legs and ribs while he moved deep and slow! amazing enough by itself, but even more amazingly he turned her to him to finish, still restraining her arms above her head, and even made a brief noise not just a raw exhale at the feverish end...and then they lay still, under the blankets, and Tatiana started to cry underneath him, and he said shh, shh, come on, but didn’t instantly move off her, like usual. “I’m so afraid,” she whispered. “Of what?” “Of everything. Of you.” He said nothing. She said, “So you want to get the heck out of here?” “Oh, God. I thought you’d never ask.” “Where do you think you’re going?” Jimmy asked when he saw them packing up the next morning. “We’re leaving,” Alexander replied. “Well, you know what they say,” Jim said. “Man proposes and God disposes. The bridge over Deer Isle is iced over. Hasn’t been plowed in weeks and won’t be. Nowhere to go until the snow melts.” “And when do you think that might be?” “April,” Jimmy said, and both he and Nellie laughed. Jimmy hugged her with his one good arm and Nellie, gazing brightly at him, didn’t look as if she cared that he had just the one. Tatiana and Alexander glanced at each other. April! He said to Jim, “You know what, we’ll take our chances.” Tatiana started to speak up, started to say, “Maybe they’re right—” and Alexander fixed her with such a stare that she instantly shut up, ashamed of questioning him in front of other people, and hurried on with the packing. They said goodbye to a regretful Jimmy and Nellie, said goodbye to Stonington and took their Nomad Deluxe across Deer Isle onto the mainland. In this one instant, man disposed. The bridge had been kept clear by the snow crews on Deer Isle. Because if the bridge was iced over, no one could get any produce shipments to the people in Stonington. “What a country,” said Alexander, as he drove out onto the mainland and south.

Is this part of your church thing?" he asks. Juanita has been using her excess money to start her own branch of the Catholic church -- she considers herself a missionary to the intelligent atheists of the world. "Don't be condescending," she says. "That's exactly the attitude I'm fighting. Religion is not for simpletons." "Sorry. This is unfair, you know -- you can read every expression on my face, and I'm looking at you through a fucking blizzard." "It's definitely related to religion," she says. "But this is so complex, and your background in that area is so deficient, I don't know where to begin." "Hey, I went to church every week in high school. I sang in the choir." "I know. That's exactly the problem. Ninety-nine percent of everything that goes on in most Christian churches has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual religion. Intelligent people all notice this sooner or later, and they conclude that the entire one hundred percent is bullshit, which is why atheism is connected with being intelligent in people's minds." "So none of that stuff I learned in church has anything to do with what you're talking about?" Juanita thinks for a while, eyeing him. Then she pulls a hypercard out of her pocket. "Here. Take this.

You feel like you dropped the tent." "What tent?" "A tent you were carrying through winter drifts taht wasn't even yours. And you didn't feel the weight until the strap broke and it fell into the snow. You look back, and it's a broken thing with cracked poles and worn hides. You were only carrying it because you needed shelter in case the blizzard came. But there was no blizzard. And once it's gone, it's easy to get through the snow by yourself.

OH, NIETZSCHE The last Christmas Eve of the nineteenth century was very cold Piercing winds and snow stuffed themselves into the cracks of every door and window As professors of philosophy gathered in the Golden Hall Their nonsense and hollow academic jargon were winning applause Feeling a chill, professors furrowed their brows And refined ladies unconsciously pulled their collars closed No one paid attention to the chill, no one even responded But the howling wind outside the window Swept across Europe’s wide sky Outside, Nietzsche was wandering around in the wilderness His thoughts were accompanied by the snowy winds and howls of wolves In this frozen world his thoughts shed their skin again and again Like a bloody struggle to be free of incorporeal chains He relentlessly pursued the truth No one could understand his eccentric and arrogant disposition No one could answer his disdain for this world For only a blizzard of manuscripts accompanied him Weathered by a tormenting disease Nietzsche bitterly suffered from his solitary meditation His discontent with thoughts surged like gales blowing the heavy snow Sweeping the sky and earth with a wild fervor What a pure yet brutal world At that moment the bells of a new century were ringing The generation of heroes Nietzsche called “supermen” From “Martin Eden” penned by Jack London To the old man who went fishing with Hemingway Have already shocked the whole world Through so many sleepless nights he endured the torture of disease Yet nurtured the poetic longing of solitude and indifference An infant thought undergoes the trauma of birth To finally cry out in an earth-shattering voice Nietzsche, before the sunrise changed the world The entire sky shimmered with your incandescent thoughts The nearly extinguished candle was burning your final passion Nietzsche, oh Nietzsche, let us walk on together

injured her ankle during the first week of physical training so that had been the end of her WAAF career. Now Susan extricated her arm from the blanket and glanced at her wristwatch. ‘The NAAFI should be open any time now for some cocoa and supper,’ she commented as Livvy rose to throw some more wood onto the stove that stood in the middle of the room. It was a temperamental thing, often throwing out more smoke than heat. ‘Ouch!’ Livvy cried as she opened the door and it spat at her. ‘I swear this ruddy thing waits for me to do that!’ She hastily threw the log she was holding in and slammed the door shut, causing smoke to billow into the hut and make them all cough. Amanda quickly took out her compact and applied lipstick and powder to her nose, then fluffing her hair up she asked, ‘So who’s coming then?’ As they had all discovered, Amanda hated being seen without her make-up, whereas the rest of them were usually bundled up in layers of clothing just intent on keeping as warm as they could with no thought to how they looked. They all rose and when Nell opened the door a gust of snow blew in at them. ‘Ugh! Bloody weather,’ Susan grumbled as they stepped out into the raging blizzard. ‘Perhaps we should have put the kettle on the stove and made our own drinks tonight!’ ‘Ah, but some of those handsome RAF chaps could be in,’ Amanda pointed out. The RAF base was not far from theirs and when the pilots weren’t flying they often used the NAAFI for a meal. Susan and Livvy exchanged an amused glance, then, heads bent, they picked their way through the deepening snow and just for a moment Livvy thought of the warm, cosy little kitchen back at the lodge. In the very kitchen that Livvy was thinking of, Sunday was just opening the door to John, who had popped in to check that all was well. Their relationship had undergone a subtle change since he had made the unexpected proposal. For a time, they had lost their easy relationship and she had felt slightly embarrassed when in his company and had stopped visiting Treetops as frequently as she had previously. But since the departure of Giles and Livvy they were becoming closer again, finding comfort in each other’s company. ‘How are you all?’ he asked as Sunday quickly closed the door behind him and he stamped the snow from his boots. Already his coat was beginning to steam in the warm atmosphere, and she smiled as she ushered him to the fireside chair and hurried off to set the kettle on the range. ‘We’re fine. Kathy is upstairs getting the twins to sleep.’ Without asking she spooned tea leaves into the pot from the caddy and lifted down two cups

When family beliefs lead you to judge someone or something as bad, another conflict appears: Your conclusions and reality get out of sync. The Smith family judged physicians harshly, so it would be difficult for any of them to adopt a similar lifestyle—even if they had the means to do so and would be happier that way. This is parallel to my condemnation of myself when my home didn’t meet my family’s standards. Until I healed my self-judgment, it was hard for me to let my house be dirty without an emotional consequence. And as any mother knows, cleaning a home with children in it is like shoveling snow in a blizzard. I would have been an emotional mess if I hadn’t dealt with this faulty core belief, and my anxiety could have caused undue stress for my children.

Outside the cottage, the North Wind howled mournfully. The snow flurries from earlier in the day had thickened, and now the wind brought with it a thick, swirling blizzard that blew in over the Marram Marshes and began to cover the land with deep drifts of snow.

Have you been crying?” She glanced away. “I’m sorry. I had one of those days.” He put his thumb and forefinger on her chin and pulled her eyes back to his. “What’s up?” he asked softly. “Need to talk about it?” “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I know you don’t want to—” “It’s okay. What made you cry? Homesick? Lonesome?” She took a deep breath. “It was a year ago today. Snuck up on me, I guess.” “Ah,” he said. He put his big arms around her. “That would make some tears, I guess. I’m sorry, Marcie. I’m sure it still hurts sometimes.” “That’s just it—it doesn’t exactly hurt. It’s just that I feel so useless.” She leaned against him. “Sometimes I feel all alone. I have lots of people in my life and can still feel so alone without Bobby.” She laughed softly. “And God knows, he wasn’t much company.” He tightened his embrace. “I think I understand.” Yeah, she thought, he might. Here was a guy who was around people regularly, yet completely unconnected to them. She pulled away and asked, “Why did you do this?” “I thought I could clean up a little and take you somewhere.” “Wait. You didn’t think I needed you to do this for me, did you? Because of Erin?” He laughed, and she could actually see the emotion on his face, given the absence of wild beard. “Actually, if you’d asked me to, I probably wouldn’t have. You really think you can match me for stubborn? Probably not. I kept the beard because of the scar,” he said, leaning his left cheek toward her. “That, and maybe a bit of attitude of who cares?” She gently fingered the beard apart to reveal a barely noticeable scar. “It’s hardly there at all. Ian, it’s only a thin line. You don’t have to cover it. You’re not disfigured.” She smiled at him. “You’re handsome.” “Memories from the scar, probably. Anyway, tonight is the truckers’ Christmas parade. A bunch of eighteen-wheelers in the area dress up their rigs and parade down the freeway. I see it every year—fantastic. You think you’re up to it? With it being that anniversary?” “Maybe it’s a good idea,” she said. “Getting out, changing the mood.” “We’ll eat out and—” “What’s all this?” she asked, looking at the bags and boxes. “Snow’s forecast. It’s just what you do up here. Be ready. But this time I got some different things, in case you’re sick of stew. And I never do this—but you’re a girl, so I bought some fresh greens. And fresh eggs. Just enough to last a couple of days. No fridge; and they’ll freeze if we leave ’em in the shed.” “Ian, what about the bathroom? What will we do about the bathroom if there’s a heavy snow?” He laughed at her. “No problem. We’ll tromp out there fine—but I’ll shovel a path. And I’ll plow out to the road, but it’s slow going and if the snow keeps coming, it’s going to be even slower.” “Wow. Is it safe to leave tonight? For the parade? Will we get back in?” “We don’t have blizzards, Marcie. Snow falls slow, but steady. Now, I’m thinking bath day. How about you?” She put her hands on her hips and looked up at him with a glare. “All right, be very careful here. I’ve had my bath. And a hair wash. I’m wearing makeup, Ian. Jesus. You wanna try to clean me up?” His eyes grew large for a moment. Then he said. “Bath day for me, I meant. I knew. You look great.” His thumb ran along her cheek under one eye. “Just a couple of tear marks, but you can take care of that. Let me put this stuff away and get my water ready. You have something to read? Or are you looking for the thrill of your life?” “I have something to read,” she said. And, she thought, at the end of the day, they all turn out to be just men. *

Don't you think this has gone on long enough?" I looked up from my book. Leon was standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame. It was Thursday night, and although my sickness-or aftereffect-was gone, I still refused to join the land of the living...I was better off indoors. "You're interrupting my reading." I regarded Leon suspiciously. He hadn't spent any time yelling at me since Friday, but that didn't mean he wasn't about to start again. "Get up," he said. "We're going out." "I'm not going out," I protested, faking a cough. "I'm sick." "You're better."... "It's going to rain. Or snow. Or both. You never know with Minnesota. We could wander right into a blizzard." ... "Fine, but I'm still not going anywhere. It's the middle of the night." "It's eight." "I'm in my pajamas

September Day sloshed another half cup of coffee into the giant #1-Bitch mug, and glared out the frosty breakfast nook windows. North Texas didn’t get snow. That’s why she’d moved back home—well, one of several reasons. She shivered, relishing the warmth of the beverage, and toasted the storm with a curse. “Damn false advertising.” Her cat Macy meowed agreement. The blizzard drove icy wind through cracks in the antique windows and made the just-in-case candles on the dark countertop sputter. She pulled the fuzzy bathrobe closer around her neck. Normally the kitchen’s stained glass spilled peacock-bright color into the kitchen. Not today, though. The reinforced security grills on the windows and dark clouds outside transformed the room’s slate floor, bright countertops and brushed-steel appliances into a grim cell. Overhead lights flickered on, off and back on again. They’d done that for the past hour. Crap. More stuff for the contractors to fix. One candle guttered in the draft, and September mentally added window caulk to her list. She prayed the electricity wouldn’t go out, since the backup generator in the garage would take finagling to find, let alone to start. She

September Day sloshed another half cup of coffee into the giant #1-Bitch mug, and glared out the frosty breakfast nook windows. North Texas didn’t get snow. That’s why she’d moved back home—well, one of several reasons. She shivered, relishing the warmth of the beverage, and toasted the storm with a curse. “Damn false advertising.” Her cat Macy meowed agreement. The blizzard drove icy wind through cracks in the antique windows and made the just-in-case candles on the dark countertop sputter. She pulled the fuzzy bathrobe closer around her neck. Normally the kitchen’s stained glass spilled peacock-bright color into the kitchen. Not today, though. The reinforced security grills on the windows and dark clouds outside transformed the room’s slate floor, bright

Schools had let out early and most businesses were closed in anticipation of the storm. My last ride dropped me off in Belfast, telling me that he was trying to get as far as Augusta, before State Road 3 became impassable. Standing alongside the two-lane coastal highway with darkness not far off, I was half thinking that I should turn back. My mind was made up for me when I stepped back off the road, making room for a big State DOT dump truck with a huge yellow snowplow. His airbrakes wheezed as he braked, coming to a stop, at the same time lifting his plow to keep from burying me. The driver couldn’t believe that I was out hitchhiking in a blizzard. This kind of weather in Maine is no joke! The driver told me that the year before a body had been found under a snow bank during the spring thaw. Never mind, I was invincible and nothing like that could happen to me, or so I thought. He got me as far as Camden and suggested that I get a room. “This storm is only going to get worse,” he cautioned as I got off. I waved as he drove off. Nevertheless, still hoping that things would improve, I was determined to continue…. My next ride was not for quite a while, but eventually an old car fishtailed to a stop. It was a clunker, covered with snow and I couldn’t really see in. Opening the front door, I realized that both seats were occupied. “Sorry, I’ll get into the back,” I said. Opening the back door, I saw that both people in the front were women. The car was cold and they explained that the heater didn’t work but they sounded like they felt sorry for me. “Where are you going, sailor?” the woman behind the wheel asked. “It’s going to snow all night,” the other one added. Again, I didn’t know if I really wanted to continue. “Well, I was going to New Jersey but maybe I should find a place here in Camden.” “What? No way!” I heard them say. “Come stay with us,” the younger one said with an interesting smile. She looked cute peering at me from under the hood of her green parka. The fur surrounding the hood still had some snow on it, so I assumed that they hadn’t come from that far away. I don’t know what I was thinking, when I agreed to their offer of staying with them, but it didn’t escape me that the woman driving was also attractive. I assumed that she must have been in her late thirties or early forties. The woolen scarf around her neck was loosely tied and her brown hair was up in a knot. “We’re just coming into town to get some bacon and eggs for breakfast,” the older one said. “We could use a little company. Come on,” the younger of the two, invitingly added. How could I say “no” to this kind of flirtatiousness? Giving my name, I said, “I’m Hank, and I certainly appreciate your offer.” They pulled into the snow-covered parking lot of a local food market. “We’re Rita and Connie. Let’s get in out of the cold before we freeze to death.

Camden in the winter of 1954 was a bleak place. It is difficult to see it this way if you’ve only been there in the summer, but most of Maine can be dismal, especially along the coast, during the long nights and short days. Once the colorful leaves have fallen from the majestic maple trees, and the last tourist has gone home, things become grim. So it was, during that cold January day, when I was on the road hoping to get a ride to New Jersey. On the radio, the weather forecasters predicted an overnight blizzard, but here it was only late afternoon and snow was already accumulating on the road. This would be my last opportunity to get home to see my family and friends, before cruising back on down to the Caribbean. I had really hoped to get an earlier start, to get far enough south to miss the brunt of the storm. Maine is known for this kind of weather, and the snowplows and sanders were ready. In fact, I didn’t see many other vehicles on the road any longer. Schools had let out early and most businesses were closed in anticipation of the storm. My last ride dropped me off in Belfast, telling me that he was trying to get as far as Augusta, before State Road 3 became impassable. Standing alongside the two-lane coastal highway with darkness not far off, I was half thinking that I should turn back. My mind was made up for me when I stepped back off the road, making room for a big State DOT dump truck with a huge yellow snowplow. His airbrakes wheezed as he braked, coming to a stop, at the same time lifting his plow to keep from burying me. The driver couldn’t believe that I was out hitchhiking in a blizzard. This kind of weather in Maine is no joke! The driver told me that the year before a body had been found under a snow bank during the spring thaw. Never mind, I was invincible and nothing like that could happen to me, or so I thought. He got me as far as Camden and suggested that I get a room. “This storm is only going to get worse,” he cautioned as I got off. I waved as he drove off. Nevertheless, still hoping that things would improve, I was determined to continue…

New Yorkers who had gone to bed on Sunday evening to the sound of rain were startled on Monday morning to find snow sifting in through cracks around their windows and piling up in front of their doors so fast that even those who left home at dawn had to dig their way out.

Of the eight clients and three guides in my group, five of us, including myself, never made it to the top. Of the six who summited, four were later killed in the storm. They included our thirty-five-year-old expedition leader, Rob Hall, a gentle and humorous New Zealander of mythic mountaineering prowess. Before he froze to death in a snow hole near the top of Everest, Rob would radio a heartbreaking farewell to his pregnant wife, Jan Arnold, at their home in Christchurch. Another sad fatality was diminutive Yasuko Namba, forty-seven, whose final human contact was with me, the two of us huddled together through that awful night, lost and freezing in the blizzard on the South Col, just a quarter mile from the warmth and safety of camp. Four other climbers also perished in the storm, making May 10, 1996, the deadliest day on Everest in the seventy-five years since the intrepid British schoolmaster, George Leigh Mallory, first attempted to climb the mountain.

Maybe she'd been sent on an errand that day. She was walking and freezing. She was mad, she remembered suddenly. She was mad, not sad. There was no errand. Then she saw three people walking towards her in the swirling snow. They had to get close to her before she could really see them. They were an old grandma and her two grandsons. The old grandma had a lit cigarette sticking straight out of her mouth. It wasn’t dangling. The little boys were wearing one mitten each. They held popsicles in their other hands, the ones without mittens on them. They were licking their popsicles. And they were all happy. They were all smiling. It was minus thirty degrees. The wind was howling. It was a prairie blizzard. Nobody was around. Grandma got close to them on the sidewalk. The old grandma said to Grandma, who was young then and not a grandma, Not too bad out, eh? Her cigarette stuck straight out of her mouth even when she talked. I asked Grandma why she’d had that memory right now. Not too bad out, eh? said Grandma. She said she often had that memory. It was just a regular flash.

Things like ‘don’t exert yourself and avoid sweating,’ and ‘don’t eat snow,’ and ‘dress in layers.’ None of them addressed the potential of being pursued by a maniac through an abandoned town in the middle of a blizzard that was one symptom of a catastrophic, world-changing apocalyptic event.

The Bodhisattva rests in glacial air, under a dust of snow, leaves fallen into one arm. This fairyland Buddha sits in an exquisite etched chair, a powdery image of beauty. Winter brings blinding thoughts of flaky falling dreams, slushy icy hard footprints, with crunchy mantras of wind. Forever surrounded by obscuring of days, whiteout of the mundane, penetrating freeze, and blizzard of emptiness. Crystalline diamond Vajra surrounded by endings. Slow drifting meditations that meander to the ground. White snow like bones, cold as death, frozen in compassion. Drifting to enlightenment with vows to return until all are in blessed fields. Icy mantra Om Mani Padme Hum to mountain emptiness, echoing forever in alpine Buddhafields. Not this, nor that— but always something else. These days, we mostly see blessed falling flakes of snow.

Sunset. Blue peaks Fade into the distance. Under a cold sky A humble cabin White with snow. Dogs bark tonight At the wicker gate. Through the blizzard Someone is coming home.

For the person experiencing depression, Meer, some days the snow’s like a few inches and they can quickly sweep off their sidewalks and get through the day. But other days...or maybe for months even...it’s like a full-on blizzard. Now the drifts are up to the door and it’s so overwhelming. The snow blower is broken, the power is out, and so they just crawl back into bed hoping conditions will clear. For some people, they never do.” Snow like that scares me. A blizzard like that is what killed my dad.

careful aperçus about tennis bums and failed fashion models and Greek shipping heiresses, one of whom taught me a significant lesson (a lesson I could have learned from F. Scott Fitzgerald, but perhaps we all must meet the very rich for ourselves) by asking, when I arrived to interview her in her orchid-filled sitting room on the second day of a paralyzing New York blizzard, whether it was snowing outside.

remember learning after entering Wharton in 1963 was that the quality of a decision is not determined by the outcome. The events that transpire afterward make decisions successful or unsuccessful, and those events are often well beyond anticipating. This idea was powerfully reinforced when I read Taleb’s book. He highlights the ability of chance occurrences to reward unwise decisions and penalize good ones. What is a good decision? Let’s say someone decides to build a ski resort in Miami, and three months later a freak blizzard hits south Florida, dumping twelve feet of snow. In its first season, the ski area turns a hefty profit. Does that mean building it was a good decision? No. A good decision is one that a logical, intelligent and informed person would have made under the circumstances as they appeared at the time, before the outcome was known. By that standard, the Miami ski resort looks like folly.

I shall sing you a song illustrating the meaning of the Dharma. The vulture, who soars through the skies, Descends for food by the power of desire. Doesn’t it notice when it is caught in a snare? The white snow-lioness, who majestically poises on the glaciers, Strays down into the woods by the power of desire. Doesn’t she notice when a blizzard has built up? The tiger, who lives in the sandalwood forests to the south, Roams through ravines by the power of desire. Doesn’t he notice when an avalanche is striking? The big fish, who swims through the waters, Chases bait by the power of desire. Doesn’t she notice she is caught in a net? Your mind, the primordial buddha, Searches elsewhere by the power of desire. Doesn’t it notice that it is wandering in samsara?

A blizzard thrashes down the hall, hail and snow rising around the Prince of Winter as he storms toward us and snarls, “Get your hands off my mate.

It was still the Wild West in those days, the Far West.… It was a land of vast silent spaces, of lovely rivers, and of plains where the wild game stared at the passing horseman. It was a land of scattered ranches, of herds of long-horned cattle, and reckless riders who unmoved looked in the eyes of life or of death. In that land we lived a free and hardy life, with horse and with rifle. We worked under the scorching midsummer sun, when the wide plains shimmered and wavered in the heat; and we knew the freezing misery of riding night guard round the cattle in the late fall round-up. In the soft springtime the stars were glorious in our eyes each night before we fell asleep; and in the winter we rode through blinding blizzards, when the driven snow-dust burnt our faces.… We knew toil and hardship and hunger and thirst; and we saw men die violent deaths as they worked among the horses and cattle, or fought in evil feuds with one another; but we felt the beat of hardy life in our veins, and ours was the glory of work and the joy of living.

After it turned so cold, it snowed enormous quantities of snow. I have no recollection of the number of inches or the temperature recorded, but it was much colder than in the Twin Cities, which we thought were semi-tropical by our standards.