Looking past or really seeing

I was walking from a parking lot just up the road to a center where I was having a meeting recently. It was bitterly cold, a fierce wind blew more than gusted, and even bundled up, I was freezing. I usually love winter weather. After years of living in the Sahel, I appreciate… even relish… actually being cold. I know; it’s a bit strange. Yet as I was hoofing it that morning, I yearned for a transporter that would allow me to instantly teleport back to the oft sweltering heat of West Africa.

The silver lining?

Brilliant arctic blue colored the skies, cotton ball clouds dotted that wide expanse, and the sun radiated a dazzling, blinding glow that bounced everywhere, momentarily blinding as it reflected off the snow covering the neighborhood. It was a beautiful winter morning! Living in Quebec, sunlight is a commodity to be treasured during the long hours of seasonal darkness.

I noticed something that morning. Sunlight is powerful. Incredibly powerful, in fact. That morning, it was well below 0’F (-18’C) and I had refused to look at the wind chill because I just really didn’t want to know. Yet sunshine was still melting snow. Frozen patches of ice had small streams of water flowing toward storm drains, even surrounded by all of that frigidity. It didn’t seem physically possible.

In that moment, the thought crossed my mind that this is not only true of sunshine, but also of “sonshine.”...

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