We woke to a snow storm and school was canceled for the kids.  A snow day.  It’s not quite like the snow days of my youth: we had less warning of storms then and snow days could often come unexpectedly.  Now, with Weather Channels and web sites we can see the storms roll up from the southwest.  And this storm was very well publicized, as it had already wreaked havoc in the South. 

     Snow is not that big of a deal here.  Northwestern Massachusetts is white and picturesque in winter.  But a snow day is still an occasion, a time when the routine is upset, a moment of relative randomness.  We have to give ourselves over to circumstance on snow days.   We lose control of our schedule, at least to a degree. 

     For me, my daily ritual of washing Aidan was postponed for a half an hour or so, while I sat with my coffee and gazed out the front window at the smooth white covering that stretched across the yard.  Two dozen small birds, sparrows perhaps, flocked around the two feeders on the big pine tree.  Maybe their routines had also been disturbed.  I got to Aidan as usual, ran the wash cloth all over him and settled him into his chair.  Then, it was waffles.  Something I like to make – and eat – but rarely do.  But it was a snow day, and a bit more time could be taken since I did not have to rush to drive Maggie to school.  The four of us lolled about the kitchen, which was suffused with the warm waffle smell, and laughed and bantered.  Not like a school day at all.

    I had to answer the snow and head out to clear the driveway.  My small but loud snow-blower did the job nicely.  When that was done, I set out to my sister’s house to see if she needed to be dug out.  She didn’t (her driveway plower had shoveled off the ramp to her house) so I went to the office and something like normalcy.

     For a time, though, the normal had been displaced.  The usual plan had to be set aside.  We had to let go of the routine and move with the snow.  It made me think of Way (Tao).  Snow changes the shape of everything, smooths rough edges, creates new lines.  It connects everything to everything else, and opens up our field of view.  Something like this passage from the Tao Te Ching (34):

Way is vast, a flood
so utterly vast it’s flowing everywhere.

The ten thousand things depend on it:
giving them life and never leaving them
it performs wonders but remains nameless.

Feeding and clothing the ten thousand things
without ruling over them,
perennially free of desire,
it’s small in name.
And being what the ten thousand things return to
without ruling over them,
it’s vast in name.

It never makes itself vast
and so becomes utterly vast.

     Our snow today clothed everything and, without trying to, became utterly vast.