The most important thing to remember is that we all should be hibernating right now.
Life is stressful, and doing well all the things we’re supposed to do is a challenge, and winter is both stressful and challenging.
When the forecast turns ominous we fret and we plan and likely complain. What’s more, we hope: hope that even if the weather isn’t that bad we’ll all agree with a wink that everyone should probably stay home anyway.
In the northeast the weather can be so ferocious that everyone, not just schoolchildren, gets the day off. Even when the reprieve is described as “working from home” this can be a respite. There’s a slower sipping of the morning coffee, and a day without putting on heels.
(A word about teaching: Every day I interact with about 200 young people, whose names and predilections I have at the ready. On different days, it’s a different few hundred kids. Approximately 10% of them at some point during the day will ask me to be the arbiter of whether or not they can use a toilet.
And students don’t have it easy either: moving from one room to another on someone else’s schedule, staying seated, switching their brains from math to Chinese with the ringing of a bell, and managing the habits of their teachers as surely as we navigate theirs.)
On days like this, when non-essential state employees and college professors and people who have those sorts of finance jobs that I don’t understand join the ranks of the Snow Day rejoicers, I am glad that they get a taste of the thrill of a different day in the middle of winter’s long slog.
Some people have to work, and I thank them for keeping us safe, healthy, and fed. Some people have more stress at home than at the office, and I wish I could help. I hope that most of us waking up slowly this morning enjoy a day in cozy clothes and the bright white swirl of snow outside our windows.
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Hibernating sounds very nice indeed.
You’re right…I should get going on that.
Thank you for not being “done” with the snow! I’m seeing messages from more and more people saying they are finished with winter weather and can’t get to spring fast enough. I’m not one of them! The snow slows us down, as you so beautifully say, and with that comes opportunities to hunker down spiritually. There’s a story about guides in the jungle who needed time for their souls to catch up to their bodies. We need that, too. The snow gives us a chance.
Plus, who’s to say what spring will bring? Floods, perhaps. Or an entry to another summer of drought? Better to deal with what’s in front of us than rush to the next thing!
I never get a day off. I have only missed 3 days of work in 33 years of work.
I hope your snow day is great!! My daughter is a school teacher and she loves snow days … just not 4 in a row!!