It doesn’t snow where I live. It ices.  Our region will drop 40 degrees within an hour. We can have balmy weather, leaves still on the trees, grass still green… by late afternoon the same day we can have a sheet –a thick sheet– of white ice covering everything.

That’s what happened last week.  And I welcomed it.

This “icemageddon” typically happens only once annually and so it is cost ineffective for cities to have trucks and equipment to deal with it.  As a result, most everything just shuts down until temperatures rise and ice melts.  Schools close. So work closes.

And then we go indoors…and stay.

Then the power goes out because iced tree limbs break and fall on powerlines. Electricity to non-residential units is cut so as to try and keep enough power that houses can stay warm.  After a day or two of no power, grocery stores have to throw out meat and dairy product.  That seems ironic.  It’s actually colder outside than in the refrigerated cases at the store, but….someone will get sick and sue, so out the food goes.

Deliveries stop (except I’ve noticed the beer trucks manage to resupply key locations).  Store shelves start to empty.

Invariably people try and play outside.  Children with no hat or gloves, sliding in sports shoes.  Cardboard boxes and cookie sheets converted into sleds.

This goes on for two, maybe three days, until conditions return closer to normal and everyone is “back at it.”  Last week was different.  Last week, we were iced in for six days.  Six days.  Five were such that you couldn’t drive around.

So we walked.  Ski pants and jackets.  Thermals underneath.  Hats. Gloves. Boots.  We ventured out to the post. Tried to find restaurants that were’t closed due to power outages.  The walks were several hours long simply because our steps had to be small and slow.

Everything slowed down.

I sat. I read. I looked outside at the white ice over everything.  I silently spoke to the trees out front whose branches were so heavy with ice they drooped to the ground.  I asked them to stay strong and not break.  Trees limbs were broken throughout the entire neighborhood.  Ours stayed strong.  I thanked them.

By the end of Day Two, I noticed the muscles in my shoulders.  At first I wondered what was causing me to be so tense. Then I realized that it was the lack of tension and my muscles were relaxing. The process of relaxing was actually making me aware that they hurt.

By Day Three my entire body was achey…from relaxing. That day I also began to be more comfortable doing nothing. Meanwhile, my husband began pacing like a caged cougar.  He insisted on the daily walks.  He started cleaning things in the house that didn’t need attention.  The more he paced, the stiller I became.

I rested, for five days.  Just rested.  No agenda. No busyness. I thought I, too, would become restless.  I didn’t.  I became quieter. Calmer. More content.  I didn’t want the temperatures to rise.  I liked stopping. I realized how long it had been since I had no agenda. No tasks.  No “things to do.”

I really can’t remember when I last took a real vacation or just several days off to sleep in, sit still, do nothing.

The ice melted too soon so me.  I was “back at it” because, well, because I had to be. Responsibility. A job. Things to do. The shoulders stopped hurting because they were tense again and I couldn’t feel them.

I wonder what two weeks of nothing would be like?

“There’s no point in growing old unless you can be a witch, and accumulate spiritual power in place of the political and economic power that has been denied you as a woman. Witches are descended from the sibyls and female saints; their lineage is noble and no woman need be ashamed to call herself a witch.”

–The Change by Germaine Greer