Somehow, I managed to take the whole fall off and not even realize it.  I guess I was distracted.  Or overly focused on what was in front of me.  Or something.

Looking forward to 2011.  There is a lot to be grateful for and I am both curious about and hopeful for what’s on the horizon. 

When the skies dumped two feet of snow on a grumpy city, something possibly transformative happened.  People had to stay put at home with loved ones.  Or play in the snow.  Or stay put with loved ones in another city.  While the struggle to get home is mighty, I have had more smiles flashed at me,  had more of those random five line dialogues passing someone on the street (the sidewalk ballets) than in a long time.  I had two hour-long conversations with strangers this week.  Just sitting there, minding my own business, eating my french fries, and then a sidelong glance, and the ever-so-tentative initial attempts at conversation.  With a retired Scottish lady I-banker and a former pro-footbal player. 

I hope that these are the kind of collisions that continue to come.  That this snow storm isn’t the only deus ex machina of coming times.   We need people to be so disarmed by, oh, say,  the forces of nature that all the walls come down.  They need to express delight, confusion, sadness to someone.  And so they reach out to you and your world gets a little bit bigger.  And you learn a little bit more.  And you’re connected for a second.

Those of you who live where there are no seasons, I feel bad for you.  Maybe that’s why Paul Thomas Anderson made it frogs for the Valley.  May you have frogs, then.