Musings on a Snow Day: the Warsaw Edition

Despite the title, I do not have plural musings to log here, but a singular musing to post for posterity. "A Musing on a Snow Day" just didn't have the right ring to it, and as I generally enjoy sequels, I take a particular delight in posting here my own sequel to my earlier musings. Also, pasting "The Warsaw Edition" to the end amuses me because it reminds me of a bad volume collection, like the Now That's What I Call Music franchise with its specially branded Christmas edition, oldies editions, and so on. They might as well just go in for the truth at this point and declare: “We're Absolute Crap at Titles, But Enjoy the Music.”  But I digress.

The view from my window at preschool

I struggle with titles. Titles are daunting. I once sat in a two-hour workshop on titles and their importance, and by the end, my title-anxiety had actually grown. A title should draw the reader in, informing her of the subject without dully stating the obvious. A title should be clever (or at least well-constructed) without being misleading. At some point during my thesis-writing, I actually had more title-anxiety than thesis-anxiety. In the end, though, I did what I've done here--I recycled and updated a previous title and called it good. So now that I've returned to my title--my musing--I shall proceed.

I awoke this morning to snow. My normally bustling neighborhood was hushed by the almost eerie quiet that falls on a city during snowfall and everything has taken on a sort of snow capped charm. It's the perfect setting for a scene: Christmas music playing softly in the background and a hot cocoa in hand as I gaze contemplatively out the window....

[at this point in my musing I had to pause for five hours to resume my day job as “Ciocia Jerica.” First I was an armless, legless Princess Leia battling "Not Good Yoda" and "Not Good Darth Vader" (though the second title seems redundant, my five year old companion felt it a necessary nome de guerre, so I obliged). After ten minutes of attack by the combined forces of evil, during which I died twice but put up a damn good fight both times, I helped coordinate the blocking for our Christmas play--no mean feat I assure you. I spent two hours rehearsing lines for said play, a Herculean task, teaching twenty ESL children ages 3-6 to recite their lines in English. I served lunch to sixteen rowdy children, played three quite successful rounds of the quiet game (it astonishes me that this game works, but thank the various gods above that it does), and spent entirely too much time sniffing five Disney Princess Lip Smacker chapsticks with an enthusiastic five year old. On a side note, adding glitter and a princess label does nothing to lessen the fact that said chapsticks smell like a foul combination of way, rotten fruit, and old lady vanilla musk perfume. And, to cap off my day, I spent several minutes straddling the worlds of vaudeville and burlesque as I chased an al-but-naked child around the classroom as she gleefully evaded me, my partner teacher, and her waiting pile of clothes. My days at preschool are anything but dull.

Making my icy trek home at the end of the day

When I started writing this several hours ago, Warsaw had a light powdered sugar dusting of snow falling, falling, falling. It is still falling, showing no signs of stopping anytime soon. I dislike snow. It's cold, and as it sets it makes my clothes, shoes, and hair wet and cold. Snow makes the roads icy and dangerous and it scares the hell out of me to be on the roads as either driver or passenger. My children love snow, however, creating snow angels or sculptures, eating it with frightening frequency, and pelting me with snowballs thrown with an astonishing accuracy. They love frolicking in snow while I, bundled in my hat, scarf, vest, coat, and boots stand off to the side doing my best imitation of an ice sculpture. The snow is pretty when it falls, but that is the most praise I can muster.

It is six and a half hours from the time I started writing with my singular musing. Six and a half hours of gently falling snow and six and a half hours of outrageous antics with children, all punctuated by what has become an odd stream of consciousness journaling of my day. The snowfall aside, this is actually a fairly typical day. I often start a thought early in the morning, and, returning to it sporadically throughout the day, find myself finally completing that thought eight hours later, when, exhausted, I leave preschool and make the daily trek home. It is tiring, at times overwhelming, and demanding on me physically, mentally, and emotionally, but it's usually worth it to receive one small, bone-crushing hug from a small, sweaty, stinky child.

But, again, I digress. When I started writing this morning, this was to be a short post accompanied by a picture--a crumb offering to satisfy my need to post something here every so often. But somewhere along the way, as I spent my day attempting to return to this thought, I encountered a truth that makes relevant all these musings (now a definite plural). I dislike the snow, but every morning when I wake up to impossible cold around me, my first instinct is to peer out the window to check for snow. I don't want snow; I feel that I should make that clear. I don't want snow, but as I am checking, I feel the same anticipation and suspense as I did when I was six, peeking out the window to spy any evidence of a snow day. Snow days as a child were the best: there was no school and if the snow was right, a person could make a snowman or an igloo or some other snow creation before, numb with the cold, retreating inside to the warmth of a fire and cocoa.  When there is no snow, as when I was six, I feel a small shock of disappointment before remembering that I dislike snow. As an adult, I don't make snowmen or igloos or other types of snow creations, nor do I generally get to enjoy a day free from school or work or obligation.  In short, there is no reason for me to routinely wake up and check expectantly for snow.  But in between storytime and yet another round of Star Wars battling, I realized that I go through this routine of anticipation and expectation each morning because I am still that young six year old who revels in all the magic and possibilities a snow day has to offer.

This is my life now: emoting and hanging out with fuzzy pink
dogs and Polish Tinkerbell. My six year old self loves it.