Weathered

A man in a tie-dye shirt is being pulled down the sidewalk by three panting huskies. A convertible zips by. Are we supposed to be enjoying this?

It’s February in the Pacific Northwest. I open TikTok to a side-by-side video of the town, measuring the days a year apart. Sixty-six degrees, sunny skies, no leaves on the trees. Thirty-two, banks of snow, slippery roads.

Maybe it’s some sort of reverse seasonal depression, I joke with my friend over our shared fatigue. It’s probably something deeper: what happens when the cyclical nature of the seasons, a shift that occurs despite our individual life circumstances or beliefs, becomes unreliable.

It seems as if the ski shops in town have run out of witty quips to fill their billboards. “Show us your best snow dance to get a discount,” they read. “Pray for big dumps.” Dry attempts to cover a haunting reality. Towns like this, subsidized by the ski industry, may be in for a future of unpredictable winters.

Recently, I got out of my car to pump gas, never fully adjusting to the local custom of having an attendant do it for you.

A man in his late fifties, wearing a yellow vest, approached me. I made a small gesture signaling that I had it.

“You just worked out and need some air, right?” he said with a smile, noticing my gym clothes and flushed face.

“Yeah,” I replied, returning his gentle, almost cheeky smile.

He asked me about my day, and I asked about his. “I’m breathing and the sun is shining, so I’d say I’m pretty grateful,” he told me. It was a January cold snap after the town had received only 36 percent of its yearly snowpack. It wasn’t the first time I’d made small talk with a stranger over the weather. Murmurs of unease could be overheard in grocery stores and bars. Retail stores kept their front doors wide open. People drank beer outside. Dogs jumped in the river.

“The bees,” the attendant said. “They’re looking for flowers to pollinate.”

“Oh really,” I responded.

“Yeah. The local flora and fauna are all confused.”

I mentioned that the prices seemed good that day. “Just went up ten cents,” he noted. “But do you have the Safeway discount?”

I told him I did. We agreed it was a big help.

Cars need fuel. People have places to be. So many stops. They stock up. There’s a big game on Sunday.

Nearly a century ago, “God Bless America” played on radios across the country. Aspiring folk singer Woody Guthrie hated it so much that it drove him to write a song asking whether God did actually bless America for people like him.

One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple,
By the relief office I saw my people.
As they stood hungry,
I stood there wondering if God blessed America for me.

For Guthrie, “God Bless America” asked for blind faith in something above. Real patriotism, he thought, wasn’t like that. Power was not anointed. It was disputable. When it failed to deliver dignity to its people, consent could be withdrawn. That’s what his music sought to inspire. When institutions fail, people move on. It’s the struggle, the commitment to something better, more humane, and more livable, that brings them together.

“A prayer, not a boast” is how Brandi Carlile described her intentions behind singing “America the Beautiful” at Sunday’s Super Bowl. Carlile’s performance is being hailed as a victory for the LGBTQ community. It’s certainly that, but it’s also a much subtler slice of hope. One that mainstream discourse, with its boxes and labels, has no language for. Carlile is one of the few mega-successful artists who has rejected becoming a brand. She’s not selling the abstract “promise of America” or inevitable progress. Like Guthrie, she understands that these things no longer command widespread belief. That they were myths, sold to us from above in exchange for our faith.

“America the Beautiful,” as a prayer, asks for grace, not salvation. It’s not asking you to believe that America will be saved or redeemed. Rather, it asks that our capacity for care, humility, and grace endure, even when the conditions that bring us together are unworthy of it.