Snow is beautiful. I love that fluffy white precipitation especially during the Christmas season. There is nothing like a real life snow globe. The perfect flakes slowly drifting down, glistening as they reflect the moonlight. But once March hits, I am definitely over it. Unless you are a winter sports enthusiast, accumulating snow tends to get in the way more often then not. It can be a bit of a pain when you have tickets to a concert but there is a winter storm warning and the roads are just icy enough that you don’t want to risk your life for a Hootie and the Blowfish cover band. Most of the time though, the snow isn’t much to worry about. Slippery road conditions are so common here that we are all masters of winter driving. All the stores, restaurants , and other businesses are still open for business regardless of 3 feet of snow. The plows come out, clear the roads, and plaster the pavement salt. With some nice snow tires and a little experience, you are going to be just fine.
I was driving this morning and noticed how beautiful the snow really was. It was absolutely caked onto all the trees, completely white everywhere I looked. The sun was shining down bright and almost blinding as it reflected off the snow. The landscape seemed to turn almost black and white like the most perfect Ansel Adams photo. As I was taking it all in, I noticed a “gray” car driving by. What once was a blue car, was so covered by road salt that it looked like it was another color all together. The salt keeps the roads safe, but that stuff is kryptonite to our metal clad vehicles. It is the root cause of the cancerous rust that destroys wheel wells before you even need to change your transmission fluid. The only way to stave off the inevitable is by consistently washing the salt off. Every time the temperature is above freezing you should be driving your vehicle through a nice sudsy scrub and making sure to choose the up sell button for “undercarriage wash” at your local Wash N’ Shine. The problem is that within minutes of those floppy cloth tentacles polishing your ride, you drive out and the streets kick the salt right up and it sticks to your doors like a billion microscopic barnacles. All winter long it is a battle, and if you intend to keep your vehicle for more than a few years you better get a membership to your local car wash or else suffer your car fermenting into rusted Swiss cheese .
What is the salt in my life? What do I keep trying to clean off and seemingly make no progress? I know I can go through seasons where the same troubles seem to keep coming back and sticking to me no matter how many times I try to scrub them away. I deal with it but then like a magnet, they reattach themselves.Maybe it’s stress at work, conflict with a family member, jealousy, loneliness, fear, or anxiety. There is a little reprieve but it’s only a matter of time before we are plagued by them again.
When you are in that season and you are traveling the same roads over and over, it’s hard to escape what those will get kicked up onto you. Recognize the season, recognize the issue, know how to clean yourself off and do it regularly. Persevere. Just around the corner the sun is warm and shining, and all that salty junk will soon be washed away by a cleansing spring rain. A new season will start and what felt like an endless cycle of dealing with the same gunk over and over will soon be forgotten . Every season has its own issues but take them one at a time, with full knowledge of what you’re fighting, and maybe spring will come just a little sooner this year.
