There comes a point in every mature student’s evening when the blues singers have stopped lamenting long enough, the Greek sculptures have been admired from every morally upright angle, and your brain gently suggests: perhaps a walk.
This is usually the moment you should ignore your brain.
I had been studying the blues (all heartbreak, railroads, and very committed facial expressions) and ancient Greek sculpture (all marble, muscles, and absolutely no modesty) for several hours. My notes were beginning to look less like academic insight and more like the ramblings of someone who needs vitamin D. So when the weather warnings popped up—snow expected, take care—I laughed the confident laugh of someone who has lived long enough to be wrong many times and still believes they won’t be wrong this time.
“It’s raining,” I said to my husband, with the authority of a woman who once watched a documentary about clouds. “It can’t snow if it’s raining.”
He raised an eyebrow. I doubled down. A bet was made. Pride was engaged. Boots were put on.
Thus began the walk.
Now, Birches Valley is very beautiful in the evening. Calm. Quiet. The sort of place where you feel reflective and vaguely poetic, as though you might suddenly understand the blues on a spiritual level. For approximately seven minutes, everything was fine. The rain was light. I felt smug. Somewhere behind me, my husband was undoubtedly conceding defeat in his imagination.
Then the rain… changed its mind.
One minute it was raining. The next minute, it was snowing. Proper snow. Big, floaty flakes that look magical on postcards and feel deeply personal when they hit your face sideways.
I stopped. I stared at the sky. The sky stared back and said nothing, which felt rude.
Within moments, Birches Valley transformed from “pleasant evening stroll” to “documentary voiceover about human foolishness.” The path vanished under a fresh white layer, my gloves (which I didn’t bring because well....confidence) became decorative rather than functional, and my fingers began to feel like distant relatives I once knew but could no longer quite remember.
Turning back was an option.
Continuing forward was another.
Naturally, I chose stubbornness.
There is something about being a mature student that makes you believe endurance is a personality trait. I trudged on, telling myself this was character-building, that Greek sculptors probably worked in worse conditions, and that the blues were born of hardship—though possibly not this specific kind.
By the time I finally staggered home, I could no longer feel my toes, my fingers were communicating exclusively through pain, and my earlier scientific certainty had melted away faster than the snow on my eyelashes. My husband did not gloat. This was somehow worse.
I peeled off damp layers, admitted defeat to the hallway mirror, and made my way to the fire. The doggies immediately attached themselves to me like furry heat packs with opinions. Curled up, steaming gently, I felt the evening shift from “I told you so” to “right, what did we learn?”
The answer, obviously, is nothing. Because ten minutes later, once circulation returned, I opened my books again.
Book 2. Chapter 1.
There is something deeply comforting about notes after near-hypothermia. A rough draft began to form—ideas about culture, context, meaning—interrupted occasionally by a dog snoring or my fingers reminding me they had been personally wronged by the weather.
And somewhere between the firelight, the soggy boots by the door, and my scribbled thoughts, I wondered: should this be one of the topics for TMA 3?
After all, what better illustration of human confidence, cultural misunderstanding, and the limits of lived experience than betting against the weather because it looked like rain?
If nothing else, it’s a reminder that learning doesn’t just happen in books. Sometimes it happens in Birches Valley, under falling snow, when you are very cold, very wrong, and very determined to walk all the way home anyway.