All of us will need Small Moments of Sanity, as climate marches relentlessly upon our planet, as the political temperature goes up and up, as the forces of regression and inequality claw with talons of prejudice at us and our institutions.
The weather of Jan. 20 was a pause from warming winters and political instability.
This year saw Boston’s first entirely snowless March since record-keeping began in 1893, rounding out a winter that featured the warmest January, globally, in human history. Even the Arctic set records: In February, in Greenland, at the northernmost weather station in the world, temperatures hovered above freezing for more than a workweek.
If you didn’t know better, you’d line up this year’s Boston’s winter in an ascending series with the previous couple winters, both of which featured weather more suited to rollerblades than toboggans, part of a warming trend that will see, within the next couple decades, Boston experience a climate like Atlanta’s.
But we who were here for the duration know better. Something unexpected, and nearly miraculous, happened this year: winter. As in, the real thing. Bone-chilling winds, ice sheets across the driveways, gorgeously snowy forest paths and temperatures that made you regret taking out the trash.
A blip, some might claim. Atlanta’ is coming.
To which I say: It was not a blip.
It was a SMOS.
What is a SMOS? In my Navy family growing up, subsurface battles about authority and control erupted fairly frequently. In the midst of fights over TV channels and yard chores, when sullenness was the order of the day, my brother David – the middle child, the keeper-together, the closest observer of our splintering moods – kept on the lookout for what he called “SMOS”: Small Moments of Sanity.
A SMOS emerged when a joke broke the tension, or when truths disarmed the rancor or when we were out walking the dog and a pileated woodpecker laughed from the Connecticut woods and put everything into perspective. SMOS didn’t solve the anxieties, much less the underlying conditions, but they gave us a little space to reconsider, a grace of normalcy in the midst of madness.
In fact, the SMOS of this winter converged in a way that felt triply miraculous for someone who loves cross-country skiing. On the morning of Jan. 20, the final swirls of what would prove to be nearly 4 inches of Boston snow still hung in the air. I’d just finished teaching a class; the next had not yet begun. This coincidence of snow and freedom from work hadn’t happened in years. I quickly pulled on the wool socks and long underwear, brushed the dust from the skis I’d bought years ago from a secondhand store in Oregon and headed out to a local cross-country ski track.
I was moving fast, because if the first and second miracles were snow and time, the third was freedom from the day’s news.
Jan. 20 was, of course, Trump’s second inauguration. Trumpfire was set to descend on our country, and promised a blistering pace of change, from executive orders that would torch efforts to fight climate change to pardons that would set free the Jan. 6 insurrectionists.
But if I got out fast enough, I could for a day remain blissfully unaware, gliding on snow, taking in the glory of a New England woods. I’m no one’s idea of a skilled skier–unless by skilled you mean mostly not falling – but it’s one of the delights of the world to turn gravity and friction into a game of speed and beauty. To venture beneath pines laden with snow, and cross bridges above frozen streams. This was a day I would need to hold in memory, to telescope long into the future, a joy that would last as long as I could hold onto it.
SMOSes do not last. That day’s break from the news ended in front of a laptop. The snows of January and February are long gone. But all of us will need these moments, as climate marches relentlessly upon our planet, as the political temperature goes up and up, as the forces of regression and inequality claw with talons of prejudice at our institutions of justice, our democratic heritage, our relations with allies, our defenses against disease.
Many things are necessary to sustain the struggle for civilization. For America’s founding ideals and the improvements we forged over the centuries, from ending slavery to universal suffrage to encouraging alliances of open trade with fellow democracies. In this struggle we will need ideas, plans, organization, strategic smarts, endurance. But also, for the sake of that endurance, SMOS.
Keep your eyes and hearts open for when they arrive. For when you need them.
Greg Harris is the founding editor of the literary magazine Pangyrus and the founder and co-director of Harvard LITfest. His essays, reviews, and stories have appeared in The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Harvard Review, Jewish Fiction, Earth Island Journal and elsewhere.
Like this:
LikeLoading…
Related Stories
A stronger
Please consider making a financial contribution to maintain, expand and improve Cambridge Day.
We are now a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and all donations are tax deductible.
A farewell to the SMOS of winter
Share this:
This year saw Boston’s first entirely snowless March since record-keeping began in 1893, rounding out a winter that featured the warmest January, globally, in human history. Even the Arctic set records: In February, in Greenland, at the northernmost weather station in the world, temperatures hovered above freezing for more than a workweek.
If you didn’t know better, you’d line up this year’s Boston’s winter in an ascending series with the previous couple winters, both of which featured weather more suited to rollerblades than toboggans, part of a warming trend that will see, within the next couple decades, Boston experience a climate like Atlanta’s.
But we who were here for the duration know better. Something unexpected, and nearly miraculous, happened this year: winter. As in, the real thing. Bone-chilling winds, ice sheets across the driveways, gorgeously snowy forest paths and temperatures that made you regret taking out the trash.
A blip, some might claim. Atlanta’ is coming.
To which I say: It was not a blip.
It was a SMOS.
What is a SMOS? In my Navy family growing up, subsurface battles about authority and control erupted fairly frequently. In the midst of fights over TV channels and yard chores, when sullenness was the order of the day, my brother David – the middle child, the keeper-together, the closest observer of our splintering moods – kept on the lookout for what he called “SMOS”: Small Moments of Sanity.
A SMOS emerged when a joke broke the tension, or when truths disarmed the rancor or when we were out walking the dog and a pileated woodpecker laughed from the Connecticut woods and put everything into perspective. SMOS didn’t solve the anxieties, much less the underlying conditions, but they gave us a little space to reconsider, a grace of normalcy in the midst of madness.
In fact, the SMOS of this winter converged in a way that felt triply miraculous for someone who loves cross-country skiing. On the morning of Jan. 20, the final swirls of what would prove to be nearly 4 inches of Boston snow still hung in the air. I’d just finished teaching a class; the next had not yet begun. This coincidence of snow and freedom from work hadn’t happened in years. I quickly pulled on the wool socks and long underwear, brushed the dust from the skis I’d bought years ago from a secondhand store in Oregon and headed out to a local cross-country ski track.
I was moving fast, because if the first and second miracles were snow and time, the third was freedom from the day’s news.
Jan. 20 was, of course, Trump’s second inauguration. Trumpfire was set to descend on our country, and promised a blistering pace of change, from executive orders that would torch efforts to fight climate change to pardons that would set free the Jan. 6 insurrectionists.
But if I got out fast enough, I could for a day remain blissfully unaware, gliding on snow, taking in the glory of a New England woods. I’m no one’s idea of a skilled skier–unless by skilled you mean mostly not falling – but it’s one of the delights of the world to turn gravity and friction into a game of speed and beauty. To venture beneath pines laden with snow, and cross bridges above frozen streams. This was a day I would need to hold in memory, to telescope long into the future, a joy that would last as long as I could hold onto it.
SMOSes do not last. That day’s break from the news ended in front of a laptop. The snows of January and February are long gone. But all of us will need these moments, as climate marches relentlessly upon our planet, as the political temperature goes up and up, as the forces of regression and inequality claw with talons of prejudice at our institutions of justice, our democratic heritage, our relations with allies, our defenses against disease.
Many things are necessary to sustain the struggle for civilization. For America’s founding ideals and the improvements we forged over the centuries, from ending slavery to universal suffrage to encouraging alliances of open trade with fellow democracies. In this struggle we will need ideas, plans, organization, strategic smarts, endurance. But also, for the sake of that endurance, SMOS.
Keep your eyes and hearts open for when they arrive. For when you need them.
Greg Harris is the founding editor of the literary magazine Pangyrus and the founder and co-director of Harvard LITfest. His essays, reviews, and stories have appeared in The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Harvard Review, Jewish Fiction, Earth Island Journal and elsewhere.
Like this:
Related Stories
A stronger
Please consider making a financial contribution to maintain, expand and improve Cambridge Day.
We are now a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and all donations are tax deductible.
Please consider a recurring contribution.