It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad Winter

March 15, 2026

What a twist to an early spring. Surprise, it’s winter again! In five days’ time, our home went from green grass to two feet of snow. And it came via a series of wild storms. Monday brought the first dusting. Driving home late from a meeting in town, I entered a white blizzard attack that kept me from seeing anything more than four feet in front of my truck. It was a slow drive. But it did evoke memories of a distant road trip in my family's old Jeep during a similar storm. At five years old, Star Trek: The Next Generation had just come out. Those pounding snowflakes hitting the windshield reminded me of the opening sequence, where the Enterprise flew at warp speed through the stars. Thirty-seven years later, I still think of that sequence every time I drive through a storm. Fun fact - for the first year of the show, I thought it was really happening. I believed it to be some kind of documentary being broadcast from space, so we could see humanities progress through the galaxies. Wasn’t it fun to be a kid?

The storms only progressed throughout the week. Wednesday saw a canceled dinner from bad road conditions. Thursday brought more falling snow. Then Friday came, and it went from bad to mad. I was actually stunned when I woke up and saw how much had accumulated overnight. Even more, it kept dumping all day, with no signs of slowing down.

Instead of fighting the elements, we took what seems to be an annual tradition of staying home during a crazy accumulation of the white slushy stuff. It had that eerie feeling of only getting worse. And it did. Bus delays, then pass closures, and road closures, followed by power outages. It all came, just as we thought it might. And it was a perfect day.

Normally, the everyday stresses of parenting, work, and finding nourishment create joy, but not always contentment. You see your child’s artwork and smile, then frown when you notice their grade in math. The dinner tastes great, until you turn and see an angry pile of dishes staring you down from the sink. Work becomes a grind, and you don’t often step back and appreciate the bigger picture of what you are accomplishing over time. Life is great, it’s just so full that you struggle with staying in the moment.

But every now and then, a special thing happens. Your brain slows down, and your body follows. Your emotions steady, and you look at your life with perspective. This is what happened on that stormy day. I stepped into my office, and with the bonus time to think and plan, was way more productive than normal. I took breaks to walk inside, finding my daughter to chat with, or my wife to laugh with. I walked through our home, and felt as if everything was in place (it wasn’t), realizing life was right where it should be. I felt at peace, even as cars slid off the icy roads just a few miles from our home.

Life in the Northwest gives you these strange winters. The every-ten-years dump of snow that starts on Halloween, or the light-hearted, shy flakes that barely amount to anything. This year, the weather has been having some kind of identity crisis. There was the insane flooding in December, followed by a couple months of dainty snowpack. How strongly did I believe Miss Winter had left? I pulled out the mower last week. Then she came back and said, "peekaboo, I’m not done yet!” Which is fine, because we made a party of it. Even when the power went out at 9:00 PM on Friday, we lit some candles and snuggled under extra blankets, grateful and content that this life is pretty amazing.