A Few Good Things About Winter. No, Really

                                                  I am entrenched
                                                  Against the snow,
                                                  Visor lowered
                                                  To blunt its blow


                                                   I am where I go
                                                       - Winter, by Samuel Menashe


1. The plow hasn't come yet, the Internet and cable are both out. The airports are closed and flights cancelled. The paper hasn't come and won't. Ah, finally, time with the family!

©twmcdermott2010

2. One good thing about snow: it doesn't flood. Until it melts.

3. Reading Russian novels! Their bulk, once so forbidding, seems more accommodating, like a perfectly built fire, your favorite chair, that red you've been saving for just the right occasion. Like now.

4. Those mauve colored vinyl mukluks with the fur lining your Aunt Sylvia gave you one Christmas: the ones up in the attic? You can finally wear them; there are seventeen inches outside. Nobody will notice.

5. Out of coffee, you find that emergency bag in the freezer. Whole beans. You can't find the old grinder, and Santa didn't remember to give you one for Christmas, did he?

6. You begin to build a pile, small at first. A pair of shorts, a well-worn polo shirt, the swimsuit with the turtles on it. You will build upon it as weeks pass. You're going to the island. Only 74 more days.

Raeburn, The Rev. Walker Skating

7. Greys, browns. More shades of grey, brown. Sky, streets, trees, rocks. An overnight flurry. Nature's Whitener, guaranteed to last a whole day, or maybe two.

8. Platform tennis (aka paddle), ice skating on the tennis court, squash, yoga. The truly desperate play tennis indoors: serve, error, serve, error. Only 79 days until the outdoor nets go up and you finally have a rally.

9. College break. Five weeks! Part time study. Profs skiing in Italy. Full time tuition. No child left behind: only parents.

10. Walking into town towards the tail end of the storm and greeting the others walking, instead of driving those hulking Durangos. For you few, the town becomes a village once again.

Bonus. That huge four-wheel drive seven passenger SUV you leased? The one which only holds one smallish person for trips to town and yoga 90% of the time? You finally really need it to make the driveway hill.

©twmcdermott2010

Double Bonus. The chimney sweep, the guy who sold you the new shovel, the plowman, the one who delivered the wood, the inventor of fatwood, the guest who gave you the Chateau du Tertre '95, the dog by your side near the fire. You love them all.

Ed Note: the poem by Samuel Menashe is from the Poetry Foundation series of books by winners of the Neglected Masters Award. It is a Library of America book:
http://www.loa.org/
The photo of the house with "snow-fingers" and blue plow were taken in Forest Hills Gardens several winters ago.