As a kid, I loved snow days. The world was transformed, and daily life was suspended. Why wouldn't it be? The world itself was reminding us to relax, to enjoy and marvel, to put daily business on pause.

I still feel that when there's snow on the ground. My body wants to wonder at the transformed landscape, to slow down, to take a breather. But the society we've built has less and less room for that. If you don't work, you won't have those warm walls around you. You'll be out in the cold. Ignore your impulses, scrape your windshield, leave ten minutes earlier. The winter weather is made a burden by our refusal to allow productivity to pause.

I know, there will always be work that needs done in the winter. Surely, not this much. I can't help but mourn for the magic of winter that gets crushed beneath the American Protestant ethic.