You see, in Colorado, we are tough, and those of us from mountain towns have the luxury at scoffing at the rest of the world when an inch of snow shuts down an entire city. We accept no excuses. Twenty-four inches in forty-eight hours? No problem, we say.

But now I live in coastal California where the majority of people understand that it’s simply follish to live anywhere water freezes without the help of GE. Why voluntarily be cold–or hot for that matter? We’ll stick with 70-74 degrees Fahrenheit thank you very much.

Having recently returned from Colorado to California, I’m fairly convinced it’s a miracle people from vastly different climates can even talk to each other. The world makes itself felt in a cold climate in a way we 70-74 degree-ers do not experience. You have to plan the weather into your life with time to scrape the car window and snowblow the driveway. And then there are days you have to cancel your plans on account of Mother Nature just to stay alive. If you ignore the weather in California, you might get wet.

Back in California, I was sitting at a picnic table that the nearby tree had covered with tiny flowers no bigger than my fingernail. Yes, in January, but stick with me here winter people. The flowers looked like little green cups. I picked one up and turned it over and inside a tiny bug was weaving its way through the white stamen, each tipped with a yellow dot, and stopping to clean its wings.

The world must make itself felt in gigantic and mysterious ways to this bug, such as when a strange force literally turns its world upside down. That upturning can happen to any of us, regardless of the weather–a death, a birth, an unexpected success, the loss of a job. And during and around all these events this world that is the source of endless opportunities for wonder, that offers so many tiny bugs in tiny flowers, continues.