Columnist
The day after Thanksgiving, I had warm apple pie for breakfast. Even that decadent indulgence could not distract me from the bitter cold of my surroundings.
Our home is old and drafty, and on recent days the temperature has seemed to dip below even the president’s approval rating in the polls. The morning after certain members of my immediate family – names withheld to protect the guilty – affronted my vegetarianism by summarily devouring roast turkey, I was awakened by a mysterious racket. I soon realized it was my teeth chattering.
Summoning the fortitude of my ancestors, I rose from my bed to twist the thermostat dial to a more amenable setting. While my wife and kids dreamed blissfully under layers of down, I fancied myself a hero like the formidable father in Robert Hayden’s immortal poem “Those Winter Sundays.” Hayden describes the dad as a cantankerous, even frightening sort, but one who was dutiful and selfless at the same time. So he got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze.
Meanwhile, the narrator stayed in bed and listened to “the cold splintering, breaking.” Now, I don’t know kindling from a hole in the ground, and my “labor” consists mostly of clacking away at a keyboard. But these days I’m more familiar than I care to be with cold that splinters and breaks.
On my way to the soul-soothing comfort that only homemade pie can provide, I peeked through my frost-glazed window. Outside, the thin blanket of whiteness on our lawn had vanished overnight. I was glad to see it gone.
I wasn’t always so jaded. Once I suffered from that foolish childhood fascination with snow. I read “The Snowy Day” by Ezra Jack Keats until the pages dissolved into a tattered pile of pigment and paper. I loved to irritate my siblings by reciting “A Visit From St. Nick” at the top of my lungs, including all that stuff about “The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow” giving “the luster of mid-day to objects below.” I was even a sledding enthusiast who rubbed the runners with candles to guarantee a good slide.
At some point, however, I put away childish things. I no longer marvel, as Robert Frost did, at “the sweep/ Of easy wind and downy flake.” Now I pull my hat down over my ears and lean against the howling fury of Arctic winds. And that’s just when I’m walking to my car.
Still, I will admit to engaging in rituals that some might regard as immature. For instance, I try to avoid actually saying the dreaded word. If I spell it out instead, the s-n-o-w will defy weather forecasts and touch down in some town where the adults are less careful about their speech.
My younger kids scoff at my superstitions. Unlike their older brothers, they know nothing of such wintry tasks as scraping encrusted windshields, clearing hidden driveways and coaxing frozen engines to life. Friendlier visions dance in their heads: building snowmen, catching snowflakes on their tongues, laughing all the way. After hours of endless play, they’ll burst through the door in a flurry of scarves and mittens, calling for mugs of hot chocolate.
Then they’ll head back out again, bright spirits with boundless energy that leaves me awestruck. Perhaps a bit envious too, since I’ve also begun to notice the way the cold creeps into my bones and joints with increasing ease. It gets inside my knees and shoulders in much the same way that it penetrates the windows and walls of my vulnerable house.
Such concerns are decades away for the youngsters under my roof. In the meantime, they are confident believers in their own rituals. According to playground wisdom, they tell me, wearing one’s pajamas inside out will ensure an abundant snowfall.
Ah, the fanciful follies of childhood. I just chuckle and nod when they share such insights. But I make sure they wear their bedclothes properly, just in case.
A former reporter for the American, Jabari Asim is a columnist for the Washington Post. His e-mail address is asimj@washpost.com.