Have you ever walked outside after a snowstorm and listened to the world around you? That is, after you get the 5:30 am phone call on your home phone, then your cell phone, then your husband’s cell phone…telling you that there is a snow day. Forget going back to sleep especially if you have kids in different schools.

When you head outside there is a calmness that seeps through you. All you can hear is the crunch of your own footsteps while you survey the whitened landscape. Almost like the calmness that pervades your household with the unexpected luxuriousness of a morning whose start is not heralded by the calls of, “Hurry up! You’re going to miss the bus.” And then, “I mean it, I am not taking you to school IF you miss the bus.” And then, “Hurry up, get in the car!”

The snow piled up while you were sleeping and now you get to drop everything because your kids are now home from school. You call into work or rearrange your To Do List of all that you were going to accomplish today. You put it aside and you live in the moment. What a great moment.

A moment where you are forced to slow down…

to make homemade chicken noodle soup…

to play like you are a little kid again…

to enjoy a decadent hot drink…

to lay in the snow and…

look at things from a different perspective.

You end the day in front of a fire, laughing about the high jinks of the day…

and you go to sleep dreaming that you could do it all over again.

There’s something about a snow day…