Talk about the Weather

‘Well, no arctic blast here.” To someone who just arrived home in Austin from a New Mexico Winter roadtrip getaway and who, longingly, noted our forecast for an impending snow.

“Yeah, no arctic blast here. Just a snow that has been amiss most of the season.”

It’s so funny, the talk of the weather here.

It is a thirsty northern desert clime, to be sure.

Punctuated by a tourist ski season that relies upon a healthy amount of snow.

My recent visitor’s comment seemed to me a bit out of place now.

And I wondered to myself, “Why?”

I, too, had remarked upon such things when I lived in fussy-weathered Austin.

And then Our Ways here in how we talk about what we talk about surfaced.

Reminescent of my Tucumcari born-and-raised father, and what he chose to say when he chose to say it.

Is it a small town New Mexico thing?

I replied to my friend that we mention the season here, rather than the weather per se.

That is, unless it’s been a particularly beautiful and warm day — As in, “Wow, not many customers today. They must all be out enjoying this beautiful day.” Or in the event of a gorgeous, heavy, longoverdue snow — “It’s so amazing outside, so still. And do you still love watching the snowfall? Is it still beautiful to you?”

“Oh, yessss.”

We mostly talk about how little snow we got, I reply, or how fast the Winter has gone.

Or how we hope for a good rainy season in the Spring to make up for the lack of snow.

No one complains about the weather here, I write him. Though we’ll remark upon it. It’s a thing here...and quite extraordinary.