A Lot Goes On Amid Bleakness of an Ordinary Winter's Day

The Boston Herald

It was an ordinary February day, not sunny and mild, a prelude to spring. Not the kind of day where you can smell the earth and feel its softness under the hard ground.

It was gray and raw and barren, the trees like stick figures drawn by a child, everything dull and muted and smudged. It was hat and scarf weather, but even these couldn't keep you warm. It was a day to endure, not to enjoy.

And yet, in the middle of all this uninterrupted grimness, in the middle of an all-weekend conference with free time limited to 10 minutes here and 15 minutes there, we were suddenly given two entire hours to use as we chose. Lunch was over and the next meeting wasn't until 3:30 p.m. We could read or rest or wander around the campus. We could do whatever we wanted.

I wanted to go home and walk the dog because home was just 20 minutes away and why not? I could walk the dog and bring in the mail and check my answering machine and maybe even get my car washed.

Chores, all these things. Nothing I would normally get excited about doing. More "have-tos" than "want-tos." Only this day they were want-tos, they were things I was suddenly eager to do.

I got in the car and headed down Route 138 and immediately got stuck behind some guy in a van who could have walked faster than he drove. But I didn't care. I backed off, turned up the radio and listened to Terry Gross interview some writer on National Public Radio. I got lost in the interview and forgot about the truck and how it was blocking my view. All I could think of was that I was glad I had stumbled upon this writer on this show.

The line at the car wash was way too long. Normally, I wouldn't have waited. Normally, I would have been annoyed that I'd already wasted so much time driving there and would have berated myself for even thinking that I could get the car washed on a Saturday without a hassle.

This day I just chilled. I watched all the intrepid souls in another line who got out of their cars to wash their cars themselves. I watched the young, gloveless boy standing in the cold perpetually making change for customers. I watched, in my rear-view mirror, all the disgruntled drivers who slowed down, looked at the long line, then pressed on their gas pedals and sped away.

My car inched along and in no time it was clean and I was on my way home.

The dog enjoyed her walk and so did I. She gave me that look that said, "Hey? What are you doing here? I thought you weren't coming home until Sunday?"

"That's what I thought," I told her. "This is a gift. Hurry up. Go get your leash."

We ran through the woods because the cold was biting and the wind was sharp and though it was great to be outdoors, it was even greater to be indoors, the furnace pumping warm air through the house, the teapot whistling.

I read my mail and part of a People magazine and phoned a friend and I still had 30 minutes left so I made a detour to the new bakery in town and got one of their absolutely delicious oatmeal cookies.

On the drive back to the conference, I listened to Jerry Williams argue with someone about Bill Clinton. I was turning him off and pulling into the parking lot, when my eyes drifted to a young man and woman walking out of a church. I watched them because they were hand in hand, and I smiled because they stopped walking and put their arms around each other and kissed.

The day didn't seem so dull anymore. The sky was still gray, but it was more like silver. The air was still cold, but it didn't numb, it invigorated.

What a lot can be done in two hours, such ordinary things that on an ordinary day I wouldn't even count as things done: walking a dog, getting a car washed.

What a lot happens that on ordinary days, I never even notice.