>What Weather Has to Teach Me
>It began snowing while I was teaching this afternoon. That’s enough to distract me, never mind a classroom of 22 teenagers! October! Snow! It began as a cold rain, that kind that makes you want to wrap yourself in a blanket and sip chai or hot chocolate. Suddenly big snowflakes pocked the ground. I can’t remember a snow in October though I do remember some white Novembers.
Later I ran into an old friend and her husband; people I have not seen in a long while. Health challenges have changed their lives. I remember how I saw things differently after having cancer. The blues became cooler, reds were hot to the touch. There were nuances I had missed like the gradation of gray on the underside of a cloud. How many days have I wasted? Hours? Minutes? Always I resolve to do it differently but mostly I forget and dash around.
Let the wild snows come. I will gather in those I love most, even if from afar. I will teach acceptance–of one another, of temperature fluctuations, of the crazy way in which we blunder in relationships and in life–only to come out on the other side stunned by what we learned. Growth is a lifelong process and I hope I have “miles to go before I sleep.” There is so much to teach and I am not done learning.
Literary Imaginings by Lisa C. Taylor 