Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad

I heard it on NPR first thing. Something about the Most Depressing Day of the Year. Huh?

Had to look it up, and found something in Time. “Blue Monday,” according to Dr. Cliff Arnell, is the third Monday in January, and it’s depressing because you’re falling off your New Years Resolutions, you’re getting your Christmas Visa Card bill, and , in Alaska, you’re cold and you’re light-deprived.

It was like getting a confirmation. People love diagnoses which explain (put the blame on something) why they’re feeling weird, or feeling pain, or just unhappy.

I myself was trolling for a reason why, this weekend, I couldn’t get my butt out to ski despite balmy (+20's), perfect weather, a supportive wife, a sleeping child. There also was the fact that we all have colds.

So, today Matteo didn’t want to eat. He had me cook up a batch of pancakes for him, and then ate the applesauce and yogurt side dish. We spilled out a puzzle of the planets, but I had to put it back together unassisted. We got out the balls to play on the steps, but he’d only catch the 12 inch ball (the easiest to catch) if I (doing a free throw from the bottom of the stairs) landed it softly in his extended arms. He made no effort for any slightly-off-the-mark shots. Not even my howling with delight at his successes seemed to make an impression.

Then we got ourselves dressed to go outside. We had that big snow, ten inches, on Friday. Well, another 5 inches this morning! Matteo busied himself with his snow shovel, while I busied myself making a run with the plastic sled down the bank onto the driveway. After inviting him to join me in a dozen fun rides, with no interest, I gave it up.

“Want to go skiing.”

“No, I have to shovel.” Hm. Okay.

What else can I do, all dressed up for action? I began to look in the kitchen boxes in the garage for a salt shaker, and a butter dish, which we probably have multiple examples of, but where? I have both on my Value Village list, because it’s probably easier to find it there than in our chaotic box farm.

It didn’t take me long to come to the conclusion not to take them off my VV list. Then the door opened to the garage.

“I’m ready to go skiing.”

Well, okay.

We drove up to Birch Hill. The temp was in the twenties, a strange fog was blowing in, and a woman called out across the parking lot, remarking on how she was seeing the full moon set a half hour ago, and now, whiteout! I got our two pairs of skis out, and the chariot, for him to ride inside when he flags. Remarkably, the trails were already groomed.

Shortly I had him in his skis, and I was getting into skis and belting on the chariot. “My ski is slipping.” I checked what was wrong. The groomed snow was soft enough that when he put weight on the ski, it could extend his ankle to the side. But it was a wide ski, so he could easily counter that by just going forward. He pushed it more to the side, looked at me and said, “I’m findished.”

“Matteo, it’s okay.” I started backing up to get beside him to encourage him. I forgot that I had the chariot trailing behind me. While I was backing up looking ahead, it began to jackknife. Silent as the disaster unfolded, Matteo got pushed right over. As he exploded into tears, I unclicked from everything and picked him back up. I could see it was over.

It took all I could muster not to just pack up and go home. Even NPR was with me on this being a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Why resist the inevitable?

“I want to ride, Papa.” Deep breath. Okay.

The snow was pretty slow. I was the first skier on most of the trails I used. When I got winded, there was the enthusiastic or was it despotic “Papa, GO!” from the rickshaw rider.

I was in a great mood afterwards. Those endorphins. The post office being closed for MLK day, we went back to the Big Brown House, and, though he didn’t want to read picture books, I did. (He wanted to watch Peep DVDs). So, I started reading a really old Dr. Seuss book out loud, and before I was off the first page, Matteo was there by my side.

Then he went down, and I got going on the mish-mash I had in my computer on an 8-week Chalice Circles curriculum Rebecca Clack and I are trying to put together. It wasn’t until later that evening, halfway through the Circle meeting, that I realized I was wrong, as usual.

It had been a wonderful, phenomenal, way good, howlingly awesome day.