What Weather Has to Teach Me

It began snowing while I was teaching this afternoon. That's enough to distract me, never mind a classroom of 22 teenagers! October! Snow! It began as a cold rain, that kind that makes you want to wrap yourself in a blanket and sip chai or hot chocolate. Suddenly big snowflakes pocked the ground. I can't remember a snow in October though I do remember some white Novembers.

Later I ran into an old friend and her husband; people I have not seen in a long while. Health challenges have changed their lives. I remember how I saw things differently after having cancer. The blues became cooler, reds were hot to the touch. There were nuances I had missed like the gradation of gray on the underside of a cloud. How many days have I wasted? Hours? Minutes? Always I resolve to do it differently but mostly I forget and dash around.

Let the wild snows come. I will gather in those I love most, even if from afar. I will teach acceptance--of one another, of temperature fluctuations, of the crazy way in which we blunder in relationships and in life--only to come out on the other side stunned by what we learned. Growth is a lifelong process and I hope I have "miles to go before I sleep." There is so much to teach and I am not done learning.