In Praise of Bad Weather

XIII

It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

- Wallace Stevens, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"

A longtime bookworm, plopper, and purveyor of social awkwardness, Betty really loves bad weather. But with whom to celebrate the rain, the muck, the snow, the falling ice? It's a stigmatized inclination people think you need to be coached out of.

But Betty waits for the dark skywater and prepares for it like it were and old friend coming to visit. When it's foul outside, neglected inner terrain (the whole house, the bookshelf, the mind) deepens and expands with possibilities not imagined while you were out under the sun.

And Betty is not writing this only because the Yankees are losing in the sixth inning now.