Stepping back from the bombardment of “news and information” gives one a chance to mentally sort through the competing messages. That is one of the benefits of shoveling snow — something I previously spoke about after the cleanup of an earlier snowstorm.

Very little snow fell this winter until March arrived; now we’ve been seeing snow storms nearly every day, just at a time when we’re thinking ahead to spring. After all, by next Monday, we’ll have returned to Daylight Savings Time, when we’ll be forced to rise before the Helios wakes his steeds and when vehicle crashes will increase as they always do when people’s sleep patterns are disrupted. If our winter is only starting now, as it seems, we’ll have more to cope with in the coming weeks than we’re prepared to face.

Perhaps the snows of March will not be much of a problem, as the daytime temperatures become high enough to help melt the new accumulations. Not only that — even the most recent storm brought only eight inches to Bristol, New Hampshire, not much of a snowstorm by historical standards. We used to consider anything less than a foot to be nothing.

Those eight inches in Bristol were nothing compared to the eighteen inches that fell over the past week in Wentworth’s Location. So it was that I found myself digging out and cleaning off the roof of our cottage, and thinking about the weather, the open water, the sun and clouds …. and the divided country.

Why are we so divided? Why are people unwilling to speak to each other, and refuse to consider others’ points off view?