In case you haven’t heard, a polar vortex of record severity has taken over much of the Midwest. As I type, the temperature outside hovers somewhere around twenty degrees below zero – without the wind chill. I ventured out twice today, in two pair of pants, two scarves, a burrito coat, wool socks and…you get the idea. Each time, I tottered down the icy sidewalk for about thirty feet – just enough for my dog to relieve herself and then plant her puppy paws when I turned around to go back inside. She doesn’t understand negative fifty-degree wind chills, and she wanted to go on her usual long walk.

Several hours after our second potty break, she is snoring next to me on the couch, and I’m the one feeling stir crazy. In my thirty-five years on earth, I’ve spent many days lounging on my couch for hours without any desire to move, but there is something about being told I can’t do something that makes me want desperately to do it. I want to go on a long walk, I want to drive to my gym, and I want to go to Mariano’s to buy a too-large container of baby kale that I will swear I’ll use in salads that I’ll never make. I want to do all of those things, but I must acknowledge that that is not what is meant for me today. I can’t help but believe that days like today are meant to be our teachers – even if I am the most reluctant of students.

Yesterday I opened an email from The New York Review of Books, and came across two journal entries from Henry David Thoreau. The first was from January 29th, 1854 and it read “A very cold morning. Thermometer, or mercury, 18 degrees below zero.” The next day, he reflected “the winter, cold and bound out as it is, is thrown to us like a bone to a famishing dog, and we are expected to get the marrow out of it…the winter was not given to us for no purpose. We must thaw its cold with our genialness.”

I read those journal entries as I sat at my desk at work anticipating two days cooped up in my condo with a squirrely puppy and an even squirrelier me. The line that lodged in my psyche was “the winter was not given to us with no purpose.” Today, I am feeling very much like a “famishing dog…thrown…a bone,” and I’d like to try to “get the marrow our of it.”

On Monday, we had an unexpected snow day. I awoke at 4:45 am, checked the traffic, and frantically began preparing for what I expected to be a 2-3 hour drive to work. I was showering when the call came that school was cancelled, and I suddenly found myself shower pink with wet hair and nowhere to go. I dried my hair, put on sweats and flopped down on my couch to sleep for a few more hours. It was glorious. I awoke to Flannery’s insistently full bladder and took her for a long walk in the balmy 30-degree weather. I chatted with neighbors and went to Harrison Park to throw snowballs and giggle as the dog hunted for them.

Around noon, I found myself watching mayor Emmanuel’s news brief about the snow and expected cold of this week and he reiterated the importance of community in times like these. We are responsible for our neighbors, and we must check on them, clear sidewalks, and take care of one another. I thought about the snow piled high on the concrete outside our building. We’ve hired a neighborhood teen to clean the sidewalks but I knew he would be in school since CPS had not called off. Guilt set in, and I suited up to shovel.

Once outside, I set to work and quickly started to sweat. Competitive to my core, I was compelled to not just shovel, but to shovel perfectly. A narrow path was not enough. I needed to clear the entire sidewalk – building to curb. Several people approached me in the midst of my labor. One man asked if I needed help, and I politely declined. A teenager swaggered up, shovel propped on his shoulder, “Ma’am, I run a snow shoveling business, if you’re in need.” He offered his name and his phone number (Mia, he’s called. “It’s perfect for me,” he said “because I’m often missing in action”). Just as Mia shared his digits, I watched my neighbor Vincent approach and said hello. “Kathleen?” he asked. “Yes,” I responded, “Hi Vincent.” Vincent is blind, and knowing he might pass beneath my balcony on his way to Ashland was one of the driving forces in my going down to shovel in the first place.

I asked Vincent if he was going to work. “No,” he said, “I’m going to pay my phone bill,” and he offered me his hands to squeeze before continuing on to the Cricket store on the corner. “Stay safe this week,” I said as I watched him walk away. “The winter was not given to us for no purpose.”

I was about halfway to the corner when a man walked by with a frantically barking dog. He apologized for her behavior and I waved away his “sorrys.” “I have a seven-month-old-lab,” I told him. “I get it.” By the time I made it to the corner and was shoveling a path into the street, he was coming back the other direction. “Are you shoveling the whole block?” he asked. “Maybe,” I countered. I explained that I live in the building, and that I just couldn’t stomach people like Vincent getting hurt in the heavy snow when I could have done something about it. I met his dog who, “has issues,” he admitted. Her name? Cardi B. “Named after an artist,” he explained, just like my dog. His name is Micah, and he lives just north of me on Ashland. We shook hands. “The winter was not given to us for no purpose.”

Back upstairs, I peeled off my layers of sweaty shoveling clothes and sat down to contemplate my adventure. The last five months I’ve felt so busy. Too busy to write, too busy to reflect. Perhaps that is what this day is meant to be for me. A day when I can do noting but sit on my couch and think. And write.

There are those things in my life that keep me honest. That force me to show up, be present, and pay attention and they include but are not limited to running clubs, goal races, my trainer, my dog, and this blog. With the exception of my dog, they are things I can choose to ignore, and over the past five months I’ve been largely ignoring this blog. There are peaks and valleys to every endeavor and often we need take a break from something to realize how much we miss it. I’ve missed you, Talking to Strangers, and I’m back.

If you know me at all or have read just about anything I’ve ever written, you know how much I love a good goal and a good social experiment. Well, I’m on the hunt for my next experiment, but I’m going to start with a new writing goal. Look out for at least weekly posts as I begin to flex my writing muscles again. As always, please share the blog with anyone with whom you feel it might resonate. It feels good to be back.

“The winter was not given to us for no purpose.” – Henry David Thoreau