Before digital learning stole our winter joy
“Looks like it might snow tonight,” says my husband as he turns to the weather channel. “See that dark blue band? It’s headed right toward us.” He pushes the thick comforter back to the footboard of the king-sized bed.
He is never cold; but I’m usually freezing. He buys me wool hunting socks for my October birthday, generally two pair, because I won’t wear socks to bed once they’ve touched the floor. Now, I can hear the wind whistle past our south window, and I shiver and slide further under the covers.
“My shoulders raise slightly and an unstoppable smile creeps onto my mouth. I can feel my eyes begin to twinkle. I’m ready for a snow day.
Instead of sharing my excitement though, I try to keep calm. “Oh, really?” I respond nonchalantly. No use getting excited; my ten-year-old self says, ”Don’t want to jinx it.”
As if to a child, my husband tosses off, “Don’t get too excited; the weather people never get it right.”
I’ve learned not to show too much enthusiasm about weather delays or cancellations, at least in front of him. Even though he is an early riser, my husband harbors a strange grudge at my infrequent fog and snow delays. It probably stems from rarely getting a snow delay from his city school as a child. Or perhaps it developed later: he knows that at this stage in his life, even if he did get a delay, he would have to get up early for a bathroom break anyway, so there would be no sleeping in late for him, no snuggling down into the warm flannel sheets and listening to the silence of the muffled traffic
He is right…the forecasters were wrong.
We go to school anyway…no cancellations for our hearty county school kids. Besides, then we would just have to make up the day later.
“Who wants to go to school in June?” my colleagues ask.
I do.
I need a break from the Monday, Wednesday, Friday vocabulary days and Thursday reading days of school life— maybe more than my students do.
Each period when the students are absorbed in reading or taking a quiz, I wander over to the window, sneaking a look outside. I watch fluffy flakes falling gently in the morning, and better yet, in the afternoon I see it swirl and whip around in the open north field just outside my classroom. I watch as the brown grass progressively turns white. My hopes go up.
“Do you think we’ll have a snow day tomorrow?” my students want to know.
“I wouldn’t mind one,” I admit.
At home that evening it continues to snow. Only the street light at the corner shows the silent accumulation as the slant of the white force descends. Otherwise, it would just be a cold, windy January night.
Too bad, my husband will have to go to work anyway. Feeling a little guilty, I tone down my wishes. I don’t express them aloud. It would be cruel to taunt him about having to go out in the bitter, whipping wind to the car in the morning. Having to shovel the walk and the drive to release our fleet of cars, when eventually someone whose school has been cancelled rouses from a dreamy slumber.
Up early and stolen out after a brief peck on my cheek, my husband has been long gone. He’s made the first tracks in the pristine marshmallowland that has puffed up since the sun last shone. I look out the window and see perfect indentations; his footprints have left behind the traces of a stalwart soul.
I turn on the news and see that school is closed. I hit snooze.
An hour later, the smell of cinnamon flop, Great Aunt Hazel’s recipe— usually reserved for weekends when we are all at home— permeates the house. I’ve been busy in my warm bathrobe , measuring and stirring a cup of flour, a half cup of sugar, a little more cinnamon than required. And one by one, the kids wander downstairs rubbing their eyes and sniffing.
Too soon the delicious day will pass and the markers of our regular mornings will return: urgent voices and bangs on the bathroom door, a line of overstuffed backpacks cluttering the hallway, and hurried gulps of cereal before we rush out the door to head to school.
But for now, we revel in the unrushed delight of a day stolen from the school calendar and the glorious options it brings.
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