Softened by snowfall

Did you notice how the boom and bang of New Year’s Eve fireworks were softened by the fallen snow?

It’s fitting for Nebraska and its Plains neighbors to face an unusually cold winter this year. Snowfall was sparse except for a white Christmas and whiter New Year. There’s so much brown for snow to cover.

Yet more distant states faced worse. Their tragic tally feels endless.

I particularly mourn the damage to the Redwood trees. I haven’t visited California to see them yet. I’m unsure I can face their massive size and age, to be shown again how truly small I am.

Omaha’s location helps. We’re less than 100 miles north of the Lower 48’s geographic center – some small Kansas town. We’re hundreds of miles from hurricanes, earthquakes and forest fires.

We most deeply fear droughts and flooding. The old nuclear plant north of Omaha was once surrounded by the Missouri River. A thin brown line of sandbags held the water out.

I’m so tired of being afraid. Let’s set aside our anxieties.

It is, after all, our New Year.