for most people, friday the 13th is a day where you spend a lot of time looking over your shoulder to see what is going to catch you, or looking forward to make sure you don't do anything that could come back to haunt you. yesterday's friday the 13th dawned with snow, a snow that really fell all day, a snow that gathered on the ground enough to create the illusion that there would be more, that maybe we could go home from school early, all the things that exhilarate you about snow.
for me, the vacillation between snow and rain, the big flakes coming down, forming things, the little specs blowing in the wind, all of them represented me yesterday. a wintry mix.
i love snow, and i have missed the peaceful nature of it for the last three years. i like the cold, the silence, the challenge of walking in it and the fact that when you do, you are almost always physically breaking new ground and leaving behind a trail. the snow is like your life in a lot of ways...you can see a vast, unpainted canvas of white, and you have the freedom to make your mark in it anyway that you like. you can just walk aimlessly and enjoy it. you can lay down and make a snow angel. you can just go from point A to point B with purpose and no thought to your footsteps. and no matter what you do in the snow, one thing is guaranteed: your footsteps will be erased as the weather turns and heats up. i guess that is just a reminder in many ways that what we do is like those footprints in the snow...lovely, clean, creative and temporary.
being a teacher is a lot like walking in the snow. you can do all of those things, but once the sun comes out, life moves on to different things and different paths. i guess as a person, i have needed the snow to remind me of what i can do, what the palate is ahead of me, and that maybe i can still paint on it, make footprints still, even though i don't get the snow opportunity all that often.
yesterday it snowed and it rained, two swinging pendulums of plus and minus. i walked out to the front lawn in front of the school between classes and just stood in the snow. then i expressed myself, as if it were just me and the weather. it ended up turning into a fun spectacle, as the students in many classrooms saw me, and the cell phone cameras started clicking. i went from having a silly snow moment to a youtube/facebook 15 minutes of fame. i admit i did ham it up by doing tai chai in the snow, but in some weird way i just wanted them to see an adult doing something silly and fun because she wanted to. no harm, no foul.
in between snow and rain, i was working on things for one of my "project" children who was having a sinking moment. working for him, trying to arrange stuff for him, sucked me dry. it was the rain, but then again, it was the snow. it has been awhile since i dug in and got my feet wet in advocating for a kid who needed one. i walked away from school wet and tired.
it is raining today, and the snow is gone. but it is in my mind and i am walking still.
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