I graduated college from SUNY Buffalo (commonly known as University at Buffalo) located in Buffalo, New York. Buffalo, NY is infamous for its unbelievable weather conditions. The amount of snow that it gets makes Buffalo a place that is feared and talked about all over the U.S.; all over the world, too. I was lucky to experience this snow phenomenon while in school (the school campus has underground tunnels to get from one place to another in snowy and cold conditions—it’s so cool!). Snow days are a story to tell, but snow is not the most memorable thing that Buffalo left me with.
The snow in Buffalo doesn’t even have to be talked about because it speaks for itself. It’s the Big Boss in town. But although we hear a lot about weather conditions in Buffalo, no one talks about the clouds. Buffalo is a pensive, gloomy, and somber place for most of the year because of cloudiness. I travel A LOT and, yet, have never witnessed a place that gets so cloudy.
If you know of a place that gets ridiculously cloudy, let me know so that I can avoid it in my travels.
The snow is a given. The wind will pause/play the music in your headphones, make you put your cat on a leash, then blow you out of your pantyhose. The clouds dry your soul. So, you can begin to imagine how brutal and discouraging the winters in Buffalo can be. The winters have a funereal mood that, day after day, becomes inescapable. Then, on an unexpected day around April-May, the clouds spread apart a little and the sunbeam starts to break through. All of a sudden, it all makes sense.
Maybe Springs in Buffalo are so precious and blissful because they come after a morose winter. Maybe Springs in Buffalo are so admirable because Spring has always been my favorite season, regardless. But as soon as that little bit of sunshine comes out; the flowers start to bloom; and the birds unfreeze their voices, all the cliche poetry that highlights the calm and sunshine after the storm and darkness start to make sense. I am revitalized. My soul is elated.
I’ve never experienced a summer in Buffalo—I wanted to spend as little time as possible in the town that my school is in—but I’ve heard the stories, and apparently the summer there is the most divine thing on this mortal plane. Maybe the cloudiness is not that usual, but is something that only happened during the 4 consecutive years that I was in the school. Maybe Spring has always been my favorite because I was born on Earth day. Whatever it is, my experience at University at Buffalo caused my love and appreciation for the Spring season to bloom even more. Glee will find its way no matter how obscure the temperament is. A smile will always bloom. Always.
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