Long Commute Home

When the children were young we had a snowstorm in Nashville. It was not your ordinary snowstorm because in Nashville we are not used to snow. I come from New Jersey where snowstorms are many and building forts, sledding and making snowmen are a regular winter activity. Ever since I moved to Tennessee it is a lot different. The grocery store gets filled with people that think they will not get to eat for months due to the dusting we will get the next day. Schools close for an inch and we won't talk about the driving ugh! People here freak out! It is mainly because they don't have the equipment to keep things a bay. There aren't many snowstorms to have to worry about but one stands out.

I think it was the winter of 2000. It came so fast I didn't have time to pick up the kids from school before it all hit. I had them at two different schools. Traveling became a problem but managed to rescue them and my nieces and hurried home. Well I tried to get home but a 15 minute ride turned into 6 hours. It was a nightmare. The traffic was unbearable and we were slipping and sliding all the way home. At one point my son had to get out and push the car up a hill.

Flash forward to 2011. This winter has been crazy with 7 storms so far and we are half way through the winter season. Not at all common for us here. We had another storm come through the other night. Funny it was only a few inches but it came so fast the salt trucks could not get it under control. It took people hours to get home. The memory of the day with the kids came back to me.


It inspired me to do this abstract painting I call "Long Commute Home".