By now, everyone has heard how two inches of snow paralyzed my beloved city for a good 24 hours. If you’re from the North or the Mid-West, go ahead and get all your laughing out of the way now. But for this native Floridian/Georgia transplant, any sighting of the white or slick stuff falling from the sky is still pretty awesome. Both my husband and I were blessed enough to work from home…so we had a different experience than most.

Living right outside of downtown, normal is seeing nearby streets stockpiled with cars, bikes, hipster righteousness and pampered pooches. The typical street symphony of honking horns, sirens, music, giggling children and animated cacophonous conversations courtesy of the local crackhead are an everyday occurrence. But on this particular morning, one the most popular traffic intersections was eerily desolate. A few protesting vehicles literally slid past us down the street but there was clearly an over-abundance of abandoned autos.  Snow blanketed  everything with a quiet, quilted layer of powdery flakes. While complete chaos ruled many parts of the Atlanta metro, my neighborhood was calmly beautiful.

By nightfall, the folks from my building decided that the frigid temps and snow made for the perfect reason to jump in the pool  with a couple cans of PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon). No, I didn’t join them. They sure seemed to have a good time though.

The one thing that stuck out the most to me was that the streets were laced with tire tracks from determined drivers who braved the elements to get home. I said a short prayer that they made it home safely. Tires tracked parallel patterns as an urban version of paw prints all over the roads. I promise you…Art. Is. Everywhere.  I even grabbed my little film camera to snap off a couple polaroids. Oddly enough, standing out there gave me solace, amusement and sadness all at once. The sadness came from knowing that beauty like this is short-lived but then again, just about all beauty is temporary.