On Being Late and an Indictment of Spring

I know that time is just a construct, a made up system of seconds, minutes, and moments (In Old English, a moment was officially 1.5 seconds, or the time allowed for a husband to tell his wife she looks beautiful in that wimple), but I really don’t like being late. I think it stems from the time when I was an awkward sophomore who missed the team bus for a basketball game and got there only by the kindness of parents of a GIRL in my class (Ewww!) who waited for me and drove me there.  It was a very long ride in which each moment was a minute and a half long, and after that, not a good game.

The issue of lateness is complicated by the number of young children you have so that your lateness grows geometrically by the number of toddlers you are trying to get ready. One child equals one half hour late. My parents had six children, and I don’t know how they got anywhere.

Over the years, I’ve learned something important. Lateness is not a problem; it is an opportunity.  A case in point….

Plenty of time!

Friday night we had tickets with friends to a Madison Symphony Orchestra concert at the Overture Center with an entirely Beethoven program, including two piano concertos. We invited our friends to crock pot chili before the concert, and had such a good time that we left for the concert only twenty minutes before the start. Ordinarily we might have made it, but this time we crawled through traffic caused by two other events in or near the Overture Center, a lane closure, and construction.  By the time we reached the balcony seating, the doors were closed, and we were forced to stand and watch all four movements of Beethoven’s first symphony on a monitor in a lobby outside the hall. In my foolish younger days, I would have fussed and fumed, said something sarcastic to my wife, stressed out my friends, and made missing Beethoven’s first symphony an issue.  Such a reaction would have been bad for our friends, my wife, and me. We hurt ourselves and others far too often.

Instead, I listened to the music, watched the maestro on the monitor, and read the program notes. Ludwig’s first symphony was written while still under the strong influence and form taught to him and Mozart by their mentor, “Papa Haydn.” Now I am more interested in Haydn and I want to listen to Mozart’s early symphonies and compare them to Beethoven’s. We were admitted after the first symphony and got to enjoy both piano concertos with Yefim Bronfman as the pianist and later, Beethoven’s Prometheus. It is interesting that most often when we are on time, I don’t have time to read the program notes before the house lights dim and the Concertmaster walks onstage. How ironic it is that being very early or very late can both be advantageous.

I would like to apply this same lesson to the weather and the late arrival of spring after a nasty winter that began November first, sank to near zero temperatures every night with two snowfalls every week and no January thaw to give us a break. I cannot.  This winter makes me fuss and fume, say sarcastic things to my wife, grump at my friends, and generally wear my depression like a scratchy wool scarf around my own neck. Mother Nature is not Beethoven and her lateness is simply intolerable.  Besides, there are no program notes to read, and if spring doesn’t get here soon so I can get out on a trout stream, I may do something really radical like write a blog about the weather.  Last night I read a joke about God telling St. Peter that He thought it was a good idea to give Wisconsin amazingly beautiful lakes and streams, forests, rolling hills, fertile fields, and bounteous flora and fauna. St. Peter said, “Wouldn’t other parts of the world get jealous?” God answered, “Wait till you see the winters I give them.”

Yes, the drifts are still three feet high.

Unfortunately, I have friends who can easily remind me of the Facebook postings I made last summer sitting on the Terrace at the Student Union looking over the sailboats and beautiful sunset on the lake and eating Babcock Hall ice cream. I can hear them mumbling that I’m getting my just deserts. (That was an accidental pun, so I’m not claiming any points.)

There is a point here. The weather is not about the weather. Being late to a concert is not about the concert, nor about being late. It is about – everything is about – how we react to whatever we experience. It reminds me of a Robert Frost poem I sometimes memorized with my classes…

Tree at my window, window tree,

My sash is lowered when night comes on;

But let there never be curtain drawn

Between you and me.

Vague dream-head lifted out of the ground,

And thing next most diffuse to cloud,

Not all your light tongues talking aloud

Could be profound.

But tree, I have seen you taken and tossed,

And if you have seen me when I slept,

You have seen me when I was taken and swept

And all but lost.

That day she put our heads together,

Fate had her imagination about her,

Your head so much concerned with outer,

Mine with inner, weather.

Yes, your head so much concerned with outer, mine with inner weather. There is truth there, the importance of our inner weather. We create our own low pressure, our own ice storms, our own lakeside sunsets with a scoop of Babcock Hall ice cream. Mine is butter pecan. You choose your own.