Drifting Thoughts

The snow day count stands at seven. We haven't had a five-day week at the Nativity School of Worcester since January 3-7. They tell me that Punxsutawney Phil didn't see his shadow; I was wondering what would have happened if the famous groundhog had stayed burrowed in... no end to winter? Yet I saw a sign of consolation in the Boston Globe the other day: the equipment truck for Spring Training leaves Fenway Park on February 8.

I've found some creative pastimes for recent snow days:

• Shoveling out a 7-foot diameter crater around our community's bird feeder; the snow had gotten so high that the squirrels could just climb up onto the dome-shaped guard and pillage the feed intended for the many juncos and cardinals that patronize our seedy little establishment. (Points if you found the pun!)
• Driving a brother Jesuit to and from an appointment during the storm, driving in second gear and doing L-shaped fishtail turns on city streets that one eloquent reporter described as "driving on Crisco." Vegetable oil may be an alternative fuel, but it's not an alternative driving surface.
• Helping to rearrange the furniture in our living room– an act as momentous as changing the balance of power in Congress– in order to facilitate an impromptu gathering of the brethren around the fireplace to share a little refreshment and a lot of stories.
• Hanging out with the guys from the grounds crew who plow our little enclave in the parking lot, and talking about fleet maintenance for everything from Chevy Impalas (great snow cars!) to 18-point plow bolt mechanisms on front-end loaders.
• Taking more pictures around campus, marveling at the mounting drifts, and wondering when the 12-foot high piles in the parking lots will finally vanish.

Tonight, I'll make a sandwich, pack a change of clothes for afternoon sports, and prepare to return to school tomorrow. I'll wind down with some journaling and prayer, grateful for the blessings of the latest round of snow, and ready for a long winter's nap.

Narnia or Worcester?

Bird feeder (and anti-squirrel crater)

Jesuit Residence, College of the Holy Cross

"Beyond the Snow Belt"

Over the local stations, one by one,

Announcers list disasters like dark poems

That always happen in the skull of winter.

But once again the storm has passed us by:

Lovely and moderate, the snow lies down

While shouting children hurry back to play,

And scarved and smiling citizens once more

Sweep down their easy paths of pride and welcome.

And what else might we do?

Two counties north the storm has taken lives.

Two counties north, to us, is far away,–

A land of trees, a wing upon a map,

A wild place never visited,– so we

Forget with ease each far mortality.

Peacefully from our frozen yards we watch

Our children running on the mild white hills.

This is the landscape that we understand,–

And till the principle of things takes root,

How shall examples move us from our calm?

I do not say that it is not a fault.

I only say, except as we have loved,

All news arrives as from a distant land.

–From "New and Selected Poems, Volume One" by Mary Oliver