I haven't had a snow day since 2018. This is because, during last winter, I was in the southern hemisphere, where it was summer, and, at any rate, the precipitation didn't work out that way this year. I remember having a snow day at the very beginning of my freshman spring semester, in 2017. My freshman dorm was an old stone building, so the resident assistants called our day off "Hogwarts in the Snow." It was fun, now that I think of it. Nostalgia is a little laughable; if anything, it makes me feel old, which is silly, since I'm 23. (Well, they do say that you're only as old as you feel.) It is true that August 2016 feels like a lifetime ago. For the sake of symmetry, I would have liked some snow days during this semester. Coronavirus, of course, has thrown symmetry out the window.
When I woke up this morning (in Newton, MA), there was snow on the ground. (Hence the cover photo for this article.) When I was little I couldn't understand why adults complained about snow; to me, snow was magical. I suppose I'm hardly unique in having had that experience. (I also often wonder what it's like to grow up in a part of the U.S. where you never see snow, since it's glorified so much in popular culture. There again, that must be nothing compared to what it's like in the southern hemisphere, where it's not winter at Christmas time in the first place.)
The funny thing about a snow day is that you're stuck in one place and you're very conscious of that. I suppose it's a tiny bit like being stranded on a desert island. The COVID-19 experience, I guess, is like that in some ways, though it's lacking in the pizzazz proper to snow or tropical islands.
I am, of course, very grateful to be safe and sound during this pandemic. There are many people seriously suffering, and I'm not; all I have to say about it is how interesting I find the feeling of it all. I did like seeing snow this morning, though. It added a little magic to coronavirus: it made it a tiny bit like a snow day.
Sheetal Tadiparty
Flickr Creative Commons
