Winter is icumen in
Lhude sing Goddamm,
Raineth drop and staineth slop
And how the wind doth ramm!
Sing:  Goddamm.
     -- Ezra Pound
     “Ancient Music,” a parody of the 13th Century tune “The Cuckoo Song”

After yesterday’s exploration of the loss of optimal structure in my day, I chided myself for not adapting to the circumstances in which I find myself (which is how the fittest survive). I decided to be pro-active instead of re-active (one of my father’s favorite phrases), and work with the situation instead of against it.

So this morning I got up fifteen minutes before Lynn, made the coffee, and sat in the
darkened kitchen with only a candle for illumination. I breathed, prayed with images
instead of words, and let awareness come up like dawn instead of being snapped on like an electric light. When Lynn came downstairs to dry her hair, put her lunch together, and have her breakfast in front of MTV, I went up to my study for a further half-hour’s reading and writing.

Just before 7:00 I went back downstairs to say goodbye to Lynn. Just by dumb luck I switched on The Today Show to get the headlines (I don’t do this every day), and superimposed along the bottom of the screen was the local station’s list of “School Closings and Delays.”

WHAT?? I looked out the window for the first time (it was still fairly dark) and saw that about four inches of “partly cloudy with scattered flurries” had fallen during the night. One  of Lynn’s classmates was trudging up the sidewalk (the bus comes at 7:05), and I sent Lynn out to call after her about their two-hour delay. The girl waved but continued on, probably to tell the four or five other kids up at the corner that it would be a long wait.

I spent the better part of my childhood in a city community of semi-detached houses not unlike Archie Bunker’s neighborhood in All in the Family. I went to the Catholic school, my two best friends went to the public school and the Jewish school, and all three of us walked. Our houses of worship were close to the schools, there was a grocery store two blocks down the hill, and my mother stayed at home. My father, who taught in a high school, went out every day, but I never thought much about where he went or how he got there.

My romantic ideas about snow and snow scenes were shaped by 19th century novels like Little Women and Hans Brinker or, The Silver Skates, as well as countless gifts of tins of Christmas goodies with Currier and Ives scenes on the lids. A few years ago I wrote an essay called “A Child’s Christmas in Harrisburg” which begins:

     The snow was deeper then, and it came earlier, or so it seems now. Fifth Street was lined with trees, and we [walked] to school under a canopy of frosted branches. It was colder then, too, so we wore boots and snowpants, scarves, gloves, and hats with ear flaps.

     The boots went on over our shoes, shiny red and blue and yellow slicker boots that rubbed against the backs of our legs. We tucked our  skirts into the snowpants and the snowpants into the boots. Over everything we wore thick wool coats that closed with wooden toggles, so that as we moved toward Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament School we looked like a procession of sausages or spacemen.
     At school we hung our snowpants and coats in the cloak room. We put our boots along the back wall, under the blue germ lights that were supposed to ward off colds. Heaters under the windows hummed all day to keep us warm. We put our hats and gloves there to dry, and the smell of the wet wool rose and swirled through the room.

(Readers around my age might remember seeing -- or seeing pictures of -- Robert Frost speaking at John F. Kennedy’s inauguration. It was the residue of that snowfall that bounced blinding glints back into the poet’s face and made him unable to read the dedicatory piece he’d written to accompany his recitation of “The Gift Outright.”)

I’m not that romantic about snow anymore. Although it’s pretty at first, especially out across our back vista, the reality is that it soon turns to “staineth slop” -- even if it doesn’t snow again this season, we’ll have the slushy gray residue of this storm all the way into March. We don't walk anyplace anymore, our lives scribed in a tight circle of city venues. We live in outlying suburbs up fifty-foot driveways that give our homes stately looks in good weather but turn into ski slopes if two inches falls. Snow makes conditions dangerous for people who have to go out, disrupts business, and forces rearrangement of events in our already crowded schedules. (Lynn’s band concert was scheduled for tonight, and my cast is to be removed tomorrow -- you DON’T want to be here if that gets postponed).

Lynn’s school changed from “two hour delay” status to “closed” before 8:00. Some
schools that had begun their transportation runs sent their kids back home at 10:00. Even the state government offices closed three hours early. 

The snow fell throughout the day. When it let up a bit, two neighborhood boys came over and cleaned off our driveway, which had already begun to ice up in the shady spot (where I broke my leg in ‘95.) By 9:00 we knew that Lynn’s school will be closed again tomorrow. About a foot of snow has accumulated on the back deck and the wind is banking it up against the sliding door.

And the irony remains that one day after I write a faint complaint about having too much family togetherness, I am treated to 48 solid hours of it. John Lennon said it best: Instant karma’s gonna get you.