The Joy of This Day

Some things are simple.  Simple and beautiful.  Like an unexpected Snow Day (yes, I capitalize all major holidays).

Oh, I know.  I know.  There is much shoveling to be done.  And nerve racking, fishtailing car rides to appointments that must be kept.  And a person can go absolutely bonkers anticipating the inevitable piles of wool socks and jeans that will soon appear, damp with melted snow, piled up in unmanageable heaps at the back door.  Someone must address those piles.

Yes, but. . . .

Would it really kill us to commit to doing nothing else but staring out our snow-dappled windows into the wonderland that appeared silently overnight?  Tell me what would happen if we succumbed to the siren song of hot cocoa and a fire, rather than the unsorted pile of tax-year paperwork.

No, let me tell you what would happen.

Nothing.

Nothing, except that our heartbeats would slow and our minds would calm down.  Nothing, except that we would suddenly recall one January day in 1974 when we could not for the life of us open our back door, so deep was the snow that came up to greet it.

Yes, It can be a dark and forbidding world.  But not today.  Not with all that fluffy permission outside that harkens lighter, younger times.  And we would do well to listen to its quiet whispering.