Back in the day, back before I lost my “big” job as a newspaper editor, snow days were flies in the ointment of my deadline-driven life. News never takes a holiday, and it was on the days when wintry weather closed schools and daycares that the scramble was on for someone – anyone – to watch my kid.
Snow days meant shuttling and stress; sometimes they even meant joining other co-workers with young children in the dreaded last-resort of lugging my kid to the office.
Today is different.
Long gone is the “big” job, replaced by freelancing and a lovely, part-time gig that allows me to work both on site and from home. My new life makes today a snow day of the highest order: Even though there’s no school, my house remains fully powered and wi-fi’d. I’ve got lights and heat, a reasonably stocked refrigerator, and nowhere to go.
I let the 13-year-old in my house sleep in a bit. Now he’s out doing battle with the snow on a promise of a big, steaming mug of hot cocoa as reward. This afternoon, we’ll rustle through the refrigerator for a sumptuous lunch of this-and-that to enjoy with cartoons. We may even chat a bit about life before I lose him to his friends and their video games.
Time flies, whether we work big jobs or small, and days like this – snow days — are reminders that we can, if we are fortunate, slow things down just a bit.
