Ideally, I wake up late, having slept in, feeling rested, perhaps staying in bed a while to read a new book, a Christmas present.
Unblinding the blinds, I would find the ground has acquired a thin coverlet of snow, unsullied yet by soot and grime and all the other elements of the less-than-ideal world. The snow is still falling, almost imperceptibly, straight to the ground, scarcely stirred by breeze. The snow hasn’t yet covered the sidewalks, but it outlines every branch and bush, emphasizing the stillness that was already there but needed this frosting to bring it to our full attention.
The kind of snow that excites dogs and children and soothes their elders. Aesthetically pleasing snow that aspires to nothing more than falling and settling wherever it lands. A polite snow, with no severity in it, one that toes the line of our man-mandated grid, the walkways and roadways. It’s like Camelot really. No more congenial spot for happy-ever-aftering.
Pedestrians amble past, unhurried, as if lulled by the balancing act on every surface, highlighting the very trees we ignored only yesterday, as if they were saying, Aha! Caught you taking us for granted!
On an ideal snow day, the whiteness isn’t allowed to mass on driven streets, can’t deepen on the parkways, and you hope it will keep snowing just like this all day long, with no further accumulation.
When I say “you,” of course, I’m leaving out sledders, snow sculptors, snowball combatants, snow angel makers, and cross country skiers who prefer deeper powder and better packing. This is merely my ideal snowy day. I don’t mean to impose it on anyone else. When I say “you,” I really mean “me.”
Some of you, though, may agree that an ideal snow day should fall on a Saturday, in fact a Saturday with no urgent business, errands, or chores to distract from the enchantment of flakes piling on by the trillions, with windows in every room from which to watch the slow accumulation — accompanied by music, the slow, moody kind, preferably instrumental, a collection of peaceful adagios perhaps.
We are busy creatures, of course, ever tempted to keep ourselves occupied, but not so busy that we forget to glance outside. It would be a most fortunate luxury to have no pressing matters whatsoever vying for our attention. On such rare occasions, when snow and schedule and every planet align, like last Saturday, we are left alone to experience a show so perfectly natural — clouds with a bellyful of frozen crystals conspiring with gravity to drape the landscape in a different rendition of beauty. Not the messy “winter advisory” forecast for several days later.
On this ideal morning, the contrast of falling and fallen snow induces a contemplative frame of mind, opposing all notions of flexing even one overworked muscle. But muscles beg to be used, and watching from windows makes us mere spectators. A walk is called for so that faces can feel the cold and coats can collect tiny, tufted avalanches from the branches overhead. And we have a civic duty to shuffle sidewalks clear of slush, to keep it from turning to ice overnight and causing a more hazardous brand of snow fall.
But for now all is well — except for the train of orange-stickered cars following a hearse down the avenue toward someone’s final rest.
Meanwhile, the snow persists, throughout the afternoon, into the evening, drifting through my field of vision like a flurry of beautiful thoughts sifted through the sieve of consciousness, waiting to be fashioned into something finer. A descriptive essay perhaps, the main meme being that life isn’t all struggle all the time.
A snow day … settling … centering … glowing with reflected light … in the quiet of a new year.
I hereby declare.