A snow day manifesto

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.