So you may have heard we had a huge snowstorm here in Chicago. About 20 inches of snow fell over a day, turning cars into unrecognizable lumps, loading up the branches of trees, coating the roads nearly as quickly as they could be cleared.

I stayed in and watched it from a distance, cozy inside, the sounds of the world muffled by the snow.

But the thing I found remarkable was that there were people out in it. People jogging in the paths of the park as though it wasn’t any different than any other run; dogs frolicking with a level of glee I could see all the way from my window. People on snowshoes. Cross-country skiers.

Even one of the worst blizzards in Chicago history — officially, it is the 5th largest — didn’t stop Chicagoans who wanted to be outside. In fact, a friend sent me a pic of her very determined 4-year-old son, bundled from toe to helmet, sitting on his training-wheel-supplemented-bike on a freshly-cleared sidewalk.

It’s even in the kids.

There will always be barriers in life. There will always be snowstorms, some so heavy it seems like snowing is the new permanent weather. We can lament the snow. We can complain about it, and we certainly do. We can exchange wry smiles in the elevator, smiles that acknowledge that we know it’s there and get on with it anyway.

And sometimes, even at its darkest, even when it falls in impossible sheets, when the break comes, we can go out and play in it.

Check out  my full-length novels,  Her Cousin Much Removed,  The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management and Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only), and the sequel, Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) which is now available!

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