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| After the snow in Hastings on Hudson |
I work at a college, and we have had many "snow days" this winter. It feels kind of childish, hoping for "snow days", especially while my work piles up on my desk, yet.... About 5:45 am my cell phone dings, announcing a text message. I know what it says with my eyes closed. "Snow Day". But I don't go back to sleep, I get up out of bed. I get up because the hours I usually spend running around to get out in time to get to work are so precious to me when they suddenly become available as anything I want them to be. I get up in the dark, set up the coffee pot and listen to the water purr and drip. I bring in the NY Times and actually read it, instead of just throwing it on the kitchen counter till after work. I turn on a light in the living room and turn on the news or the weather channel. I sip my coffee slowly instead of cooling it down with a lot of milk so I can chug it before I leave for work. Quite a different story, snow days.
On days like these, I wonder how life has gotten so fast. It does, you know, get faster as we get older. I finally figured out that it just takes me two to three times as long to do things, you know? Like bath, hair, makeup, getting dressed, making lunch--everything takes longer. Still, this leaves me speeding into my last third and fearing that it will take less than a third to get through. Last third, you know, 1-30, 31-60, and 61-90. This is just plain not fair. Not fair.
So what's the moral of the story? What is the wisdom I wish to impart? More snow days.
T. S. Elliot: Time you enjoyed wasting is not wasted time.
