Digging Out

As I write this, in my home in Boulder, Colorado, the snow outside my window is gently falling. The day has been particularly quiet; the snow has kept noises subdued. Itâs over 30 centimeters deep in some places, with more coming tonight and over the next few days. Iâve already had to shovel my driveway twice. I expect Iâll be doing it many more times in the coming week.

Meanwhile, across the country, weâre still looking for answers in the aftermath of two explosions that rocked an event where people had gathered to cheer each other on. The explosions werenât particularly powerful, but they were powerful enough.

I donât have any more insight on this than anyone else. No one knows why this happened, or how it is that circumstances could even lead to such a thingâat least, no one knows yet.

Still, some facts did emerge as time went on; not about the lead-up to the event, but about the aftermath. Along with the terrible injuries and deaths, there was some more heartening news. People were seen rushing toward the explosions, not away; heading into danger to help. People in Boston were on Twitter offering assistance: a place to stay, a place to warm up, a place to get food and water. Others donated blood, until the Red Cross had to tweet and say they had enough (but please, wait a few days and then donate, since the current supply will run low soon).

During that mix of news my attention was drawn to a series of people on Twitter saying, âMeanwhile in Iraq, 50 killed and 300 injured in bomb attacks today,â with a link to a news story about it. Certainly that is a bigger event in terms of sheer magnitude, and whatâs been happening there has been going on for years, making the enormity of it difficult to grasp. And while it can be hard to know the exact intent of the people tweeting that, it does seem like they were trying to put the Boston story into a global perspective, a sly if snide dig at American isolationism and narcissism.

Fair enough. But thatâs not the only way to see it. To me, that also shows that ideologically driven human-made horror is, simply, everywhere. We cringe at bigger numbers, at bigger events, but perhaps, in the end, all horror is local. Something nearby will seem bigger because it literally hits home. Comparing it with ongoing, larger horror does nothing to lessen the impact.

And it doesnât change the fact that while it probably only took a few people to cause the damage in Boston, a far, far larger number rushed in after to help.

I was thinking about all this as I watched the snow fall past my window. It occurred to me, somewhat randomly and spontaneously, that this snowstorm must be huge. Itâs been snowing all day, and will continue for several more. I found the GOES satellite view of the United States, and the system truly is enormous, a thousand kilometers across, and still being fed by Pacific moisture. The amount of water in the air above the western states must be measured in the billions of tons, hundreds of billions.

That fact made me reel. Itâs a huge number, impossible to grasp. I continued looking out my window, thinking of the comparatively small amount of snow settling onto my yard, belying the immensity of the cloud above.

Either way, that snow is here, and more is coming. All of us are still going to have to shovel ourselves out from underneath it.