It's like fog...

Recently in the great state where I live we've been experiencing a common phenomenon known as "inversion." It is defined by the great scientific and meteorological minds of our time as occuring when the layer of air near the earth is cooler than an overlying layer. It's dirty and cold and terrible for your health. Smog. Disgusting. Well that's all a matter of perspective.
Ever since I was little I've loved the miracle of inversion. Maybe it's because, always surrounding Christmas, the mists act like the swaddling around the infant savior. Maybe it's because there is the terrifying allure of something too close to avoid but completely out of sight. Regardless I can remember walking to school (well across the school grounds anyway) in the deepest thickest fog of my recollection and being in awe of the romance of the mists. Even if they weren't quite Radcliffe's rolling mist and shiftig vapours. To me they held as much horrid delight as any gothic novel could provide.
Now that I am older I understand what causes inversion and how it's bad for your lungs blah blah blah. But I just can't shake the warmth this chilly cloud brings me. Because that's what it is for me. A cloud. For a few short days every year, I get to live in the clouds. And it makes you cough. It stings your eyes. It very well could even cause my death some year when I'm older as the mists seeps into me over time and causes a deadly pneumonia or some other such disease. (But of course nothing so romantic as consumption now that science has rearranged itself so that consumption now is obsolete and has been taken to the chop shop to be some other subsidiary ailments.) It makes driving a real pain in the tires. But these are all things I welcome readily for the shrill thrill it brings each and every year.
Not everyone would agree with me. In fact, I'm sure I may be in the tenth of a percent area. "It blocks out the view of the mountains." It elevates the mountains. Magnifies them. Makes them seem more lofty...above the clouds. Further away but even bigger than you ever remembered. For a few short days of the year they are as grand as the Himalayas. They are the grandfathers of the Alps. "It blocks out the sun." It captures the light. It caresses and holds sun. Spreading the light across the whole sky. And it clasps the sunset in a vicelike grip until the very last ounce of color and light is placed before you.
So to all of you who complain about "that horrible smog" by telling me "how disgusting it is"...well why don't you try stepping into a different perspective. Clear your mind of fog about the smog.