This morning, I was chipping ice from around my tires; the slush embedded there had frozen solid overnight. At one point, I tried to use my scraper as a pry tool...and I snapped the head right off. Once I got rolling, I was shocked to discover that the lights on Route 12 hadn't been reset, so the stretch between Gungywamp and Crystal Lake was again harrowing, and put me on the Submersible Death Trap a couple of minutes late. By most objective standards, the calendar day between 0730 Monday and that same time Tuesday was straight awful.
But through it all, I was never really flustered, nor did I get angry. Separation '09 - officially eleven weeks away, effectively only seven - has caused an unusual tranquility to pass over me. I thought of the way the American hockey team might have felt in the last few minutes of the Miracle on Ice. Also tonight, I was reading Bill Simmons's account of the last game of last year's NBA Finals. That tale captures a similar "is this really happening?" feeling. And perhaps the best part: it's only the prelude. What's it going to feel like in this much time, when the final horn sounds, and this pipe dream becomes reality?
