We've had our first winter storm, and something on the order of four to six inches of snow now covers the landscape. You're just going to have to deal with it.

On snowy days, I'm always reminded of what may be my favorite book ever, The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. The young protagonist, Peter (the first character I ever met who shared my name), goes through a series of experiences that teach him (and the reader) a great deal about the world: certainly I learned that actions have unintended consequences (whacking a tree with a stick dumps a load of snow on Peter's head), that everyone has art in him (Peter learns how to make snow angels), and that the promise of eternity can be found even in the transient (Peter dreams that the snow has melted, but when he wakes up the next morning, new snow is falling).

I don't plan to have an epiphany every time there's a measurable snowfall, but I do seem to end up writing about it every time. After all, if there's one thing a Southern writer cannot do, it's ignore snow. Below the Mason-Dixon line, snow is an event rare enough to cry out for special attention, even in a northerly part of the South like central Virginia. It's not quite the magical once-a-century event it was for the citizens of Maycomb, Alabama, in To Kill a Mockingbird, but it's still a significant break in our routine. God calls time out, and we're all left standing around waiting for the world to come back from commercial.

It's less of a break here at Woodberry, of course, because classes aren't cancelled. I walked up the hill in this morning's driving snow and sleet, leaving my own children at home, in order to teach a speech class and an English class. I'll probably head home for a brief visit in a bit, then come back up the hill for my last class at 1:00, but except for the chances of getting hit by a snowball, it won't be that different a day from my typical Thursday.

But it will. Snow puts even the familiar and the mundane in a new package; the stuff underneath may be the same old crap, but there's still a gleeful sense of anticipation as you prepare to unwrap it. Anything could be inside.

It's worth remembering that when Bill Watterson brought Calvin and Hobbes to a close, he didn't do it by bringing Calvin's world in line with reality. Calvin didn't suddenly look at Hobbes and see the stuffed tiger that everyone else always saw; that would have been a heartbreaking ending, but one I could easily have expected. After all, when you're my age, you're supposed to cynically expect that everything fantastic and pure will eventually melt into slush and mud. I should have trusted Watterson not to let me down like that, and he didn't: in the final panel of the strip, a work of art as funny, thought-provoking, and beautiful as a dream, Calvin takes Hobbes on one final toboggan ride, barreling downhill into a landscape of pure white possibility, crying "It's a magical world... Let's go exploring!"

Happy snow day, everyone. I'm heading down the hill myself.
7:28 AM

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