I never feel I have earned a bonus because I have not held a real job but once in my life. I worked at an ad agency before Bob and I married. In my extreme introversion I hated it. It wore me out; I would be in bed before nine every night.

Then Bob and I married and he was proud that I did not have to go out into the world and work. Instead I helped him deal with sorrow and he with me. Not by saying anything meaningful, but by enduring life one cold icicle drip at a time. Now I do that alone.

This is a Snow Day, a bonus day. I don’t have to do anything but endure it unto the end. Rob offered to cook and I told him we’ll take the day off from cooking. I bought a Cuban sandwich at the grocery yesterday and there is a can of Progresso we can split. So much for hard work.

I write this bonus note for a reason. My heart is aching with loss as it does every day, whether snowy or ninety degrees. That is all you can expect of a heart. Leonard Cohen explained that to us again and again. You see, aching is what hearts are for. If they didn’t ache, we would be automatons. Actually I see them all around me and I myself try and emulate them. Sadly.

My best quality just may be that I cannot recover fully from life. It is simply too much for me, so I play the role of automaton very well. I smile, I cook, I shop, I watch TV. But love has found me out; it knows me better than I know myself.

Love is meant to break you wide open. If it hasn’t already done so, it will. Not a day goes by that I don’t feel an anxiety that nothing can quell. It is the sure knowledge that life dies and is reborn and we are nothing but witnesses to it. Tears and laughter are caught in passing.

Today is a Snow Day and tomorrow will deliver me back to automaton status. Somewhere someone is trying to hold it all together and I think I know who that someone is….

Vicki Woodyard