Snow Days
On Rediscovering Unexpected Joys
It’s 2014 and when I go to bed, I’m praying for a snow day. My friends urge me to wear my pajamas inside out and stick a spoon under my pillow for good luck, but I don’t buy into it. Instead, I go to sleep looking at the glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling, praying and willing the snowstorm to come.
The next morning, I look outside and see a winter wonderland. That means pajamas all day, playing in the snow and no homework. As a joke, I fill bottles of water with food colouring and write on the snow, “happy spring!”
My parents called that winter “snow-mageddon” because over 550 centimeters of snow fell on Prince Edward Island that year — the worst winter in 42 years. I call the winter of 2014 the best because I hardly went to school.
Now I’m 21 and in my final year of my undergraduate degree at St. Thomas University. I’ve grown to love school, but like most students I’m worn out from the never-ending pile of work.
And we’re one year into the novel coronavirus pandemic. I complete my classes from my desk in my basement apartment where I also work and socialize virtually with family. I’m thankful I can still work and attend class.
In a world thrown off balance, I try to find stability in little, everyday actions. I write a daily list of tasks and check them off. I meditate every day. I paint some nights after I get screen-fatigue from work and classes all day. I call my mother on the Island and hear my cat screeching in the background while she tells me stories of what my horse has been up to lately. That’s been my saving grace — finding a rhythm I can count on every day.
I think it’s about controlling what I can in a world that’s increasingly falling apart.
Then my rhythm got thrown off a few weeks ago, on Groundhog Day.
I wake up on February 2 and glance out my window like usual. I see several feet of snow, like someone tipped a huge bucketful into the backyard. I remember the weather station warning of this and smile to the empty room. I look at my phone and see most New Brunswick schools are closed.
Despite the university emailing that all online classes would resume I claim a snow day. I turn off my alarm, play some slow country music, and go to sleep. When I wake again, I watch the snow swirl around outside, thinking of my granny when she called it “snow globe snow” for the picturesque view it creates.
There’s something about a snowstorm that makes me want to do anything except be productive. I did end up doing classes — and I worked — later in the day, but I took the morning off. Even though I’m 21, with the virtual world at my fingertips, I stuck to an old routine of honouring snow days. Perhaps it’s nostalgic, reminding me of simple childhood memories. Or I could just be procrastinating. Both are likely.
But I think there’s a third reason I hadn’t considered before: I let myself find unexpected joy. Spending my morning letting myself relax in a way I hadn’t in months was refreshing. While I maintain that my daily routine has kept me motivated, calm, and focused — I didn’t leave much room for joy.
I know, it seems like a shallow word given the state of the world. I cringed a bit when I wrote it, too.
Hear me out, though.
I think it has to do with childhood, and snow days.
It’s like you’re bathed in light. Like your smile reaches your ears. Like you wake up and the day is yours for the taking.
Sure, the moment only lasted a few hours before work, classes, and the mess of this world came crashing in. But in those few hours I took what I needed.
After a year of this pandemic, I thought I’d learned every lesson it could teach me. I was wrong. I’d focused so much on rebuilding a sense of normalcy that I forgot sometimes these unexpected moments can carry happiness.
I could have dragged myself out of bed and started work early as usual, but I didn’t. Instead, I reached into the past and dragged this sense of wonder I had forgotten about since childhood. It’s still there, waiting to be felt. And it doesn’t mean you have to believe in magic — or sticking a spoon under your pillow for good luck — but it does mean you have to lean into it.
