January 26th, 2015
Hello all,
As I am new to the Beaufort Blog, I will take this time to introduce myself. My name is Francis; I come from the town of Dobbs Ferry—a suburb of New York; and I bring to Beaufort a great passion for words and ideas, as I see my foray into publishing as, (to some extent) a continuation of my interests in literature and philosophy—my two majors in college.
And now for something completely different.
Today is a nervous day for New Yorkers, as we await what could be, as Mayor Bill de Blasio assures us, “the biggest snowstorm in the history of this city,” (much to the chagrin, surely, of weather reporters, whose actual job it is to comment on these things.) As amusing as it is when weather reporters (or mayors) get it completely wrong (as they seem to have done so often in the past), there is certainly an atmosphere of worry that’s settled over even my small town of Dobbs Ferry. The owner of my local deli greeted me with a foreboding—yet warmly humorous —“Stocking up?”, as I paid for milk and bagels enough to last a couple of days. This sentiment—I think—really catches the spirit of gearing up for a blizzard: we are nervous at the prospect of being snowed into our homes—and rightly so—but there’s a part of us that can’t help delighting in the snow and in the promise of having an excuse to be confined to our homes for an unknown period of time. In other words, to have what the Danes call hygge; a wonderful word that resists direct translation into English—which makes it all the more interesting—please do look it up!
But the delight is perhaps greatest of all for bookish people, many of whom look for any chance they get to curl up with a book. And without the burden of having to commute to work, and without friends prompting us to leave the house to be social, I’m sure many of you are like me and will thoroughly enjoy—when you are done working, of course—the lazy pleasures of reading over the next couple of days.
Stay safe, everyone—and warm!
BeauRegards,
Francis