Snow Daze

Way back in my time, you’d listen to the radio. Your mom would wake you up with a whisper – “Snow!” – and you’d bounce to the living room radio and do your best to find a station that was announcing school closing, holding your breath and standing very still on just your right foot. There was no spoon-under-the-pillow, no backwards-pajamas, no ice-cube-down-the-toilet nonsense; we knew, back then, that the only way to effect School Closing Magic was to stand on your foot while you listened for the list.

Now we get an automated phone call, and an email, and the news is posted on the school’s website. The feeling, though, is the same. That surge of potential injected into a day you were expecting to be sameasusual. Suddenly, there is space, room, temporal stretchiness. Usually we make pancakes to celebrate.

Now, though, there’s also a sinking feeling paired with the joy. Snow days mean arrangements. Snow days mean projects pushed back, scrambled phone calls, desperate email pleas, that sinking feeling of resignation that the work you want to do is not going to get done, not today.

But, mostly, there are pancakes and happy boys. Play well, dears.