Warning: This is a really long post.
I know I give the Russian winter a pretty bad rap-- I'm complaining about it all the time-- but I saw something today that made me pause to think not just about the Winter, but about life in general.
As I was walking home, there was a couple carting this huge dog across the snow by a harness. They were lifting the dog's front legs off the ground as it stumble
d through the snow on its back legs; both of its front legs were stiffly out in front of it, and it was obvious that one of its paws were injured.
As they reached a thick patch of snow, the couple gently put the dog down, and it gingerly stood in the snow, its leg twitching away from the cold but still standing. The couple started cheering when the dog began limping around in the snow, putting its injured paw in the cold before lurching around again.
As much as the snow can be an annoyance-- it's cold, wet, and slippery-- the snow can be helpful, and healing, too. I should have remembered this from the time that I stupidly partially collapsed another two knuckles (yes, I hit a punching bag wrong)-- Russians don't have ice, or ice packs in their freezers, and I knew that I needed to ice my hand down when I noticed how much my knuckles were swelling. I shoved my hand in every readily accessible patch of clean, fresh snow that I could find; and my hand healed within a day or two, as opposed to the week it took me when I was back home.
Point is, for every hardship that you come up against-- whether it be snow, a bad experience, or life's normal drama-- everything always has good to go with the bad. You just have to look for it, and use what could be a nuisance as something to help.
As they reached a thick patch of snow, the couple gently put the dog down, and it gingerly stood in the snow, its leg twitching away from the cold but still standing. The couple started cheering when the dog began limping around in the snow, putting its injured paw in the cold before lurching around again.
As much as the snow can be an annoyance-- it's cold, wet, and slippery-- the snow can be helpful, and healing, too. I should have remembered this from the time that I stupidly partially collapsed another two knuckles (yes, I hit a punching bag wrong)-- Russians don't have ice, or ice packs in their freezers, and I knew that I needed to ice my hand down when I noticed how much my knuckles were swelling. I shoved my hand in every readily accessible patch of clean, fresh snow that I could find; and my hand healed within a day or two, as opposed to the week it took me when I was back home.
Point is, for every hardship that you come up against-- whether it be snow, a bad experience, or life's normal drama-- everything always has good to go with the bad. You just have to look for it, and use what could be a nuisance as something to help.
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