Some Thoughts On The Weather

“When we mention the weather, then, as part of the larger seasonal narrative, or of a smaller, immediate one, like the course of a storm, we’re acknowledging this shared narrative — one of the few universal ones we have. Of course, we aren’t consciously acknowledging it; but nevertheless, don’t we refer to it all the same? Perhaps, then, what we’re accessing when we habitually remark upon the weather outside is this sense of a shared narrative, one that’s as ineluctable as breathing. Our unthinking and fleeting remarks about inches of snow and the shapes of the clouds are a trace of our shared narrative that is the weather and its cycles — the deepest level of any cultural ritual.” In other news, this week will be cold, then warmer, then cold again, it being January and all.