I Hope You Play in the Snow

 

Dear Kate,

This part of town is hardly moving, trapped in last night's snow dying down only as I was giving it a first shovel at 5.  Then another after breakfast, wiping down my driveway and pedestrian paths as if nothing had happened, cleaned my email inbox more or less the same way, arduous but matter-of-fact, and now here, getting ready to work.  I didn't plan today this way but life has its own plan to work me out.

You must have heard stories about big strong men dropping dead in the snow they were shoveling, facedown or backward or sideway leaning on their shovel that could no longer hold the weight of this world for them.  The pure white gave them the illusion that all is well with the land, the cool air that all is well with them.  Thirty minutes of unnecessary but good exercise, tops, they thought, to go right back to where they belong, safe and sound and warm and hopefully sufficiently appreciated.  They didn't plan their final day that way but life has its own plan to wind them down.

It must have been peaceful too; don't want to go so far to say romantic, but if romance is understood as a prosaic narrative of heroic exploits, then, yes, dying into the embrace of a beauty you can't quite understand is about the most romantic way to go down: an adventure away from home, yet keeping every familiar comfort within reach, even as you can reach no more.  We don't want to die alone but we do.  The next best thing is to be found soon enough by those who might feel a little sadness or even regret at the sight of us facedown, fell backward or sideway, peaceful and romantic.

I don't agree with everything Jordan Peterson said (and I am sure he doesn't either), but here I share a video of him speaking a romantic tongue.

I hope you play in the snow.

Yours, Alex