Snow Excuse.
Even though I work from home there’s something special about snow days. It’s especially true here where we only get a really heavy snowfall every five or years—enough time for me to forget what half a foot or more of snow is really like, how it feels to step into the unbroken whiteness and sink into it almost up to my knee. It’s so cold right now the snow is light and powdery, and yet when it closes in around my leg I can feel the weight of it. That’s only one of the strange things about snow. It also reflects light so even the darkness is bright. I woke up last nigh and thought it must be morning from the light pressing through the blinds. Then I looked at the clock. Three a.m. I went to an open window and looked out. The cloudy sky meant there was no moon, and yet I could see the whole backyard clearly. Only the solar-powered bird feeder was dark, its photon collecting chip covered since Sunday. Snow also muffles some sound and heightens others. This morning, the real morning, after sunrise, when I went out I stood and listened. There was no wind, no brushing of trees, but I could hear a woodpecker clearly, tapping away at a limb. A rusty female cardinal just below it gave an annoyed chirp.
In spite of the glare—the clouds are gone now and the sun is out, though it’s still bitterly cold—the cover of snow made me want to go back to bed and sleep, to hibernate until things warm up a bit. I can’t go anywhere, at least not anywhere I could drive. I do like to get out and walk in the snow but only for so long. And thought, well, work will really be a relief—a break from the long break, a structured routine to take the place of my unstructured routine. Maybe I’d open up a picture of a nice beach somewhere to contrast with the expanse of snow before I got to work.
Then my boss texted me to say work is cancelled for the day. I guess enough people have gone back to working in the office, or aren’t able to get their home computers going. Maybe too many electrons are stuck in the snow. I’ll take the break. Maybe I’ll go for a walk.