Snow Day Jottings

February 22, often a good day for snows in NYC and, when we lived there, the DC area. Good defined as major storms, and today's will leave 6-9 inches in New York. It's coming straight down now after blowing in wind gusts earlier and from the window I'm watching it pile up on car roofs. Would get over to Central Park, but today gets busy in the afternoon, my first time with patients at the hospice, then Bianca's opening at 5:30 and finally Otello at the Met at 8 PM. If it's anything like Macbeth was, it will be powerful and seeing it sung will add new dimension to the play itself.

I've been thinking lately -- triggered to some degree by the hospice training -- about the transition from baby to child to adult and, if one lives long enough, for most of us, back again. I suppose it even started with riding a bicycle (the best way to get around NYC, but that's another subject) regularly again, meaning it started a long time ago for me, but it is the gift of time and choice, to do only what you want to do -- and your finances permit -- and to do it when you want to do it, with others or alone. It is, in short, play, including serious play. A city is a good place for play. This city is perhaps the best place for it, where children and adults who are out of adult uniform pretty much go about their fun unobstructed -- so long as the fun is not bizarre behavior -- and, even better, unnoticed. No one sees, no one expects. You have the run of the city.