ALL WINTER IN A DAY

An old story by Ray Bradbury titled "All Summer in a Day" tells a tale of children reacting (somewhat poorly) to the one hour every seven years when the sun shines on Venus (where they live).  Only one child in the schoolroom remembers the sun because she moved to Venus from Earth five years prior and has actually seen the sun for real, so the children bully her and lock her away until the sun is gone again.

I feel that way a little bit today as we experience all winter in a day. 

I wake up early, around 4:30 a.m., and listen for the rain that the weather people predicted we would get.  It is supposed to be a large and intense system with downpours and high winds.  Instead, all we have gotten in the last few hours has been a gentle, misting drizzle, silent against the windows with no winds at all.  I don't hear anything, so I doze back off until the radio alarm pipes classical music into my room just after 5:00. 

I have to plan the day's wardrobe to get through teaching all day, plus a stint of hall duty, and a meeting after school.  All of this planning is tempered by the fact that I still get hot flashes that can take down a horse, so I need outerwear (sweaters or fleeces) that can go on and off at my body's whim.

I debate dresses and then jumpers and finally settle on pants, a short-sleeved shirt, an open-front sweater, and some light, spring-type shoes.  After all, it's just drizzling a little bit and I'll be inside all day.  I sneak another peek outside to see if it's still damp out.  It is, but it's still only misting.  No big deal.  This outfit should do and my shoes will keep my feet cool during those lovely heated moments.  It's not like I have to trudge through snowbanks.

I putter around getting my lunch packed, my bangs straightened, my eye liner crayoned on, and my iced coffee (yes, here in New England even in the throes of winter, we suck down iced coffee like it's air) ready.  Before I brush my teeth and put on lipstick, I need to run outside (no auto-starter) to warm up my car.   I open the front door.

It is snowing.  Not just a little bit; a lot.  It has snowed enough since I last looked outside (twenty minutes earlier) that it is already sticking and my windshield is covered. 

This is just too damn bad because I am already dressed and ready to go, so my springy, breezy shoes are staying right on my feet where they belong.  I head back inside for five minutes, finish my morning prep, then head to work.  I drive through giant snowflakes, usually the hallmark of the start or end of a storm.  By the time I park in my work spot, it's raining again.  My car, covered with snow still, looks ridiculous in the empty lot where there isn't another flake of snow in sight.

During the course of the day, it snows again, then rains, then snows again, then rains, then snows again, then rains, then the sun comes out, then it snows, then it rains, then it snows, then it stops.  By the time I head to my after-school meeting, it's snowing again.  I love it when it snows, and I'm stuck inside, excited every time I see it snow (and pulling the shades open) then depressed when it turns to rain (shutting the shades again).

I cannot see out the windows of the room where we are all gathered for over an hour.  Apparently, this is my "locked in the closet" time where I cannot see what the weather is doing outside.  When I stroll outside with my coworkers, it is simply raw and icy and the air is sharp and biting.  A small amount of mist sticks to my windshield, and it is easily and quickly rectified with one forward-back motion of the wipers.

Driving home it drizzles a tiny bit at one point then stops.  Two miles from my house the sky abruptly lets loose another torrent of giant snowflakes. 

All winter in a day, I tell myself, just like the story only opposite seasons.  Some will say that's simply New England, for sure, but I prefer to think of it as literary magic.