Dear Mother Nature,
I wanted to write you a quick note to say thank you.
I was delighted to hear that you are not only sending a storm to the Northeast, but a “historic” storm with 58 million people in its path. Schools are closing, flights are canceled and a state of emergency has been declared. People are racing to the supermarkets as if a zombie apocalypse had arrived. Milk! Bread! Flashlights! Candles! Batteries! A blizzard is coming! Thank you, Mother Nature. We needed this.
I grew up in Western Michigan, where was nothing as good as a snow day. And we got a lot of them, thanks to the “lake effect” snow coming off Lake Michigan. It was a day to sleep in, relax in front of the fire, head outside to play in the snow, bake cookies, help with the shoveling and drink lots of hot chocolate.
And boy, we could all use this.
I’m sure you’ve noticed: Every year it seems that we are all working harder and our schedules are busier.
Finding time to just relax with our families and do next to nothing is next to impossible. And for those of us with kids in school, even when we can take a personal day we usually use the time to get errands done and race the kids from one activity to another. “Quality time” becomes riding in the car together.
And I know we just had the holidays, but these are not the same as a snow day, where you can’t go anywhere, you can’t do much of anything outside and you are usually stuck inside with your the immediate family. Here, suddenly, is your excuse to slow it down — read a book, work on a DIY project, bake something complicated, play a board game or just feel bored. Snow days are for those simple pleasures you’d feel too guilty dedicating an hour to any other day.
That’s why I’m also begging you, Mother Nature, could you please knock out the power for several hours too? Make sure the lights are out long enough that the batteries die on the cellphones, iPads and laptops.
Make it so neither kids nor parents can look at a screen, check in to work … or even put in a full day telecommuting. This is hard to stop unless we are forced to. Studies suggest that the average working professional spends almost 30% of the day answering and processing emails. That’s 82 work days a year dealing with email!
Just how out of control are we? The Internet is already filling up with articles about how to “maximize productivity” during the storm and tips for ignoring your kids so you can stay connected to work. Listen, we already work too much. That’s why the electricity needs to go out. We need a snow day.
It’ll also make selling the Monopoly marathon to the kids much easier if I’m not competing with Minecraft and “Gossip Girl” reruns. And if this drags on for a few days, maybe we’ll reach out to our neighbors, band together and get creative with the meals.
We can all go to sleep early … and then sleep in.
Which brings me to another nice thing about losing power: It’ll make a family sleepover a necessity. We’ve noticed that none of our kids want to sleep up in their rooms when there’s no power; they want to be with us. Five people in one bed isn’t going to fly, so building a sleep fort and camping out in the living room, now that’s some solid family time.
To be sure, massive snow storms are not all fun and games. They can be dangerous, even deadly for the elderly and the homeless. Check on your older or disabled neighbors; for some of them a power outage is an opportunity for disaster. I pray every one will be safe, stay indoors and seek help early if they need it.
But for the many of us, getting snowed in with nowhere to go is a much-needed break from our insanely busy lives. The years are flying by. Who knows how many more snow days we have left to enjoy. So, thank you Mother Nature, for sending a “historic” storm our way. I hope we all take the opportunity you’ve given us to unplug, crack open the board games and for one day, truly savor the weather, the day and the time doing nothing much at all.