What to do on a snow day? There are the outdoor activities — shoveling, snow sculpting, or just trudging to the end of the block and back. There are the indoor activities: making soup, cleaning closets and curling up on the couch to watch the flakes fall.
And then there is the modern, plugged-in version of a snow day: blogging and spreading the word about my latest book review, which entailed setting up a profile on Blue Sky Social (an X alternative). Yikes! That has taken up more time than I’d like it to this morning.
With that box checked, I plan to sink more deeply into the day, to enjoy all the transformations that snow can bring.
It’s not just that we’ve had little measurable snow these last few years, it’s that for the most part we’ve lacked even the promise of it, that delightful drumbeat of suspense that can accompany a snowstorm.
One of my favorite ways to enjoy blizzards in the past would be to complete all out-of-the-house errands before the first flakes fell, then plop myself down in front of a local news broadcast and watch cheerful reporters decked out in their most stylish parkas and hats, telling us what we could expect.
I’m out of practice in that area. Besides, a new forecasting powerhouse is in town: the Capital Weather Gang, the Washington Post‘s coterie of meteorologists. I think it’s fair to say this crew is pro-snow. Which is not to say their forecasts aren’t accurate; they are usually spot-on, and they cite the models (who knew there were such things?) upon which they’re based.
Still, I detect a barely-restrained glee when there’s white stuff in the forecast. And why not? It’s been a while since we’ve had a good dousing. But from what I’ve read, that may change … soon.
(This snow photo was taken almost five years ago.)
I see them in the neighborhood, flying halfway up the three flagpoles that grace our block. I saw a large one yesterday, what I think of as a “highway flag,” which I typically associate with the lonely off-ramps of midwestern interstates but which, for some reason, was flying over a car dealership on Route 7 in Loudon County.
Whether small or super-size, the flags have one thing in common: they are all flying half-mast. And for once I know why. I know that they honor the 39th president of the United States, the president who lived the longest, the only one to reach the age of 100.
I’ve read much about James Earl Carter Jr. these last few days. I’ve remembered his many accomplishments, recalled his trials and failures, his rich and noble post-presidency, including a Nobel prize. Here was a president who was alive at the same time as William Howard Taft and has only just gone to his reward.
So often these days I don’t know who or what half-mast flags are about. This time I do, and I realize anew the importance of this tradition, its invitation to remember, to grieve. American flags will be flying at half-mast for 30 days for President Jimmy Carter.
(A flag flies half-mast at Ball’s Bluff Battlefield Memorial Park in Leesburg, Virginia, last Memorial Day.)
It’s a traditional getting-back-to-business day, the return of work and school after holiday revelries. So why do I feel like doing nothing?
It’s simple. Holiday fun takes time to plan and execute. For all the wonder and excitement it generates, it don’t explode fully formed from out of nowhere. Presents must be purchased and wrapped. Dinners must be planned and served. Visits must be executed.
The chief planner/purchaser/wrapper/cook might be forgiven for wanting to do nothing more than curl up with a good book. Which may be exactly what she does … at least for an hour or two.
We’re more than 19 hours into 2025, a windy beginning to this new year with jets flying low over the house. They barely registered due to the din inside, as our large gang gathered.
There was a brunch with black-eyed peas and bagels, and then, after the cooking and eating and visiting, there was a piano to be played and a newspaper to be read.
That the first day be packed full seems in keeping with the general tenor of life these days, a life I’m grateful to have on this first day — and all the days — of the year.
(This was posted on 1/ 1, but due to a glitch in blog settings — now fixed — shows up as 1/2.)
As the year winds down today, I plan to be scribbling about it in my journal. It’s been a ritual for decades, begun when my typical New Year’s Eve plans involved babysitting for the family down the block.
When I was younger, I would take these retrospectives quite seriously, composing a highlights reel of the year I’d just lived. I’m a little more jaunty about New Year’s Eve entries now, though I don’t know why I should be. Each year life becomes more precious.
I think it’s because I realize that the beating heart of a year is not to be found in a list of what happened and how I felt about it. What matters are the aha moments: Witnessing a spectacular sunset. Falling asleep to the gentle patter of rain on the roof. Glimpsing on an adult child’s face the exact same expression she’s had since birth.
These are the moments that matter. And today, I’ll be celebrating them.
I’ve spent the morning with yarn. Spools and spools of it. Sage greens and sky blues, violets and aubergines. Yarn for placemats and scarves and table runners and blankets. Tapestry yarn and loom yarn. The textures and colors invite me to touch and imagine.
The yarn belonged to my dear friend Nancy, and now, through the kindness and connections of another friend, it will find a new home.
My experience with yarn is limited to amateurish crochet projects, but Nancy was a weaver extraordinaire. I’m so grateful that her work and her yarn will live on.
“I gotta know what day it is,” says the character Murray in the film “A Thousand Clowns,” a favorite of mine. Murray is a truth-teller. He wants to own each day, “or else the years go right by and none of them belong to you.”
Murray tries to avoid the mind-numbing workaday world, where he sits on the subway staring out the window, not knowing whether it’s a Monday or a Wednesday, knowing only that it’s a work day. I know what he means; I’ve been there. But it’s also liberating to be so tangled up in holiday time that you have to remind yourself every morning what day it is.
That’s where I am now. From what I can tell, today is Saturday, but it feels like the fifth Saturday in a row, maybe even the sixth. It feels deliciously unmoored. The days seem more mine when I can’t name them, when they’re detached from any duties or associations, when they’re pure and unfiltered.
So here’s to the holidays, when a Friday feels like a Saturday and a Saturday feels like a Sunday. Here’s to time untethered.
One two-year-old I know peels the paper off her presents and then hands each to me. A preschooler removes every shred of paper but seems stymied by the box. A four-year-old looks with wonder at the rotating ballerina who pirouettes every time a music box is opened.
It’s the wonder of Christmas on young faces I’ve noticed most this year — with the usual variations based on age, temperament and nap times.
The elders have their own signature gift-opening techniques. Some ignore their presents, treating them as they might another candle on the birthday cake. Others gobble up the gifts, always ready for the next.
It’s the bounty of the season in bite-sized morsels — the best and sometimes the only — way to savor it.
Once again the days have passed, the splendid ones and the trying ones. Once again we’ve come back to this point, which is for me, and for many, the great pause. Christmas Eve. Christmas Day. Soon to be followed by New Year’s Day and the delicious week in between. Once again I’ll re-run this blog post, one I wrote in 2011. Merry Christmas!
12/24/11
Our old house has seen better days. The siding is dented, the walkway is cracked, the yard is muddy and tracked with Copper’s paw prints. Inside is one of the fullest and most aromatic trees we’ve ever chopped down. Cards line the mantel, the fridge is so full it takes ten minutes to find the cream cheese. Which is to say we are as ready as we will ever be. The family is gathering. I need to make one more trip to the grocery store.
This morning I thought about a scene from one of my favorite Christmas movies, one I hope we’ll have time to watch in the next few days. In “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Jimmy Stewart has just learned he faces bank fraud and prison, and as he comes home beside himself with worry, he grabs the knob of the banister in his old house — and it comes off in his hand. He is exasperated at this; it seems to represent his failures and shortcomings.
By the end of the movie, after he’s been visited by an angel, after his family and friends have rallied around him in an unprecedented way, after he’s had a chance to see what the world would have been like without him — he grabs the banister knob again. And once again, it comes off in his hand. But this time, he kisses it. The house is still cold and drafty and in need of repair. But it has been sanctified by friendship and love and solidarity.
Christmas doesn’t take away our problems. But it counters them with joy. It reminds us to appreciate the humble, familiar things that surround us every day, and to draw strength from the people we love. And surely there is a bit of the miraculous in that.
