Sitting on my bed with one boot on–wet–and the other carelessly tossed on the floor–dripping–I have come to the realization that I am not as spontaneous a person as I could be.  In other words, I do not particularly enjoy surprises and like things to be in order.  In other words, I am a bit of a control freak. 😉

So today as I made my way to the university, rain falling and drivers honking, I was quite decided that The Weather Channel along with everyone else with whom I had spoken during the previous day about the weather and the chances of snow falling in Rome… were quite wrong.  The morning’s rainfall did nothing to change my perspective.

Setting out for the day, I dressed in my it’s-absolutely-positively-only-going-to-rain gear. I went to my first class, a meeting, then the pharmacy, and then my eyes  met with the fall of snowflakes.  These snowflakes were not the tiny snowflakes the disappeared as they landed… Oh, no, these were the huge, mushy, hahaha-we-are-here-to-stay-so-just-deal-with-it kind.  I was wrong. It is snowing in Rome (and hell did not freeze over in response to this event as I had suggested to myself, nor did pigs fly–I have a talent for engaging in denial… at times).

Snow storms, ice storms, and blizzards experienced in Boston last winter as well as my corresponding fibromylagia flare-ups, I realize now, were made into distant memories.  A past that no longer touched the present, or so I thought.

The snowfall was a “surprise.”  My emotional response was even more so–I was happy.  You see, cold and snow has meant to me the experience of increased pain and fatigue over the years.  More importantly, snowfall produced within me a feeling of anxiety because I feared for my physical wellness.

To be happy to see snow, to think of Boston, to feel the cold of my past meeting my present, is something for which I am truly grateful.  I am happy that somehow the world in which I once lived is making a space for itself in the one in which I am now living… So,

Happy Snow Day, Rome…

and to everyone else in places covered today in white!

Today I have learned that joy can be found in surprises whatever the form they take… just like in one of my favourite films Il Tigre e La Neve (The Tiger and the Snow).  This film reminds me that the accidents/surprises of life, of living, creates the poetry of our existence.

Until next time!

Best,

D.