The world has so many problems that some days merely getting out of bed is one of the labors of Hercules. I personally take an hour to put on my fawn skin these days.
My old black Labrador "Roscoe" who is 14 has the right idea. He moves ever so slowly out into the yard and then he eats snow.
I remember as a child in New Hampshire the glory of eating snow.
Okay. I don’t eat snow anymore. For one thing: I can’t identify the yellow patches.
For another thing: it’s unseemly for a grown man to get down on his knees and put his head in a snowdrift.
"Look Mommy! The blind man who lives next door has lost his head!"
Mommy: "It’s not polite to stare Honey."
Yes, and it’s no fun eating snow when you’re wearing a fawn skin.
But Roscoe has the right idea.
Take advantage of the small blessings.
I once had a friend who was an esteemed history professor. He actually looked like an eminent professor–gray hair, glasses, a little slumped from a life at the desk.
Anyway, one night we were both rooming together in a New York City hotel because our flight was canceled, etcetera. And while I was brushing my teeth, Frank went out into the corridor without explanation.
When he came back he had sandwiches, grapes and a bowl of fruit salad.
Frank had taken these items from the room service trays outside various rooms.
"It’s all still good," he said. "People give away all kinds of good things in America."
I told Frank that he was really a poet.
I miss Frank. He’s been gone now for about ten years. Students at the college where he taught will find his vast collection of books in the library. They will see some of his margin notes written in pencil. They will profit handsomely from being in the presence of a mind that wrestled ardently with Aristotle.
But they won’t know Frank was a poet.
And I suspect Frank would have eaten snow if it looked clean enough.
S.K.
Planet of the Blind 