It is really cold. We’re at 26°, the high for the day. Yesterday, the snow melted then, last night, it froze. In places it looks like waves, ice waves cresting on the lawn. The rest of the grass is covered in frozen snow. My feet made crunchy sounds when I got the paper. I was most careful walking across the yard. Everything is slippery. The dogs and I have had enough of out so we are snuggling together on the couch. Every now and then Henry sighs.

When I was a kid, January was the most boring month. We had no holidays off from school, and, I swear, every day was bone chillingly cold, well below freezing. It always took a while to get warm once I arrived at school. My cheeks stayed red and my feet stayed cold. I remember my classroom and all of the winter sounds, the hissing radiators below the windows, the gurgle of water through the pipes, the scratching of pencils on paper, creaking chairs and pages turning. I remember hoping, maybe even praying, that we wouldn’t have outside recess.

A long while back, I passed a schoolyard where the kids were at recess. I paused to look, prompting memories of my own. Every recess, we stood in the divided geographically by sex and tradition school yard, the girls on one side, the boys on the other. The girls had their groups and games and the boys had theirs. Girls jump roped, mostly the younger girls, or played clapping games. The older girls stood in groups and boy watched and maybe gossiped a little. The boys played basketball at both hoops in the school yard. I don’t remember jump roping.

I do have one recess story. I remember standing in a group of girls talking, laughing when I was in the fifth grade then I noticed my friend. She hadn’t made it to the safety of the group and was being bullied by a boy saying horrible things to her and making her cry. I told him to stop. He didn’t. How silly! I punched him in the face. He stopped. I ended up in the principal’s office. Once she found out the story, she told me not to do it again and to find a peaceful way to protect my friend. She let the bully have it. I really wanted to applaud.

This entry was posted on January 20, 2026 at 3:19 pm and is filed under Musings. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.