You don’t pump anti-lock brakes. I’m still not used to that. As my car skidded a bit across the December ice, I remembered to turn into the spin and bring it around straight again. Not so the driver behind me who began to fishtail before he remembered and corrected.
And I found myself smiling, loving the cold, the wind, the black ice which hid itself against the 6:00 am pavement. Not more than a few weeks ago, the sun and humidity baked my air-conditioned-less classroom. The autumn oak leaves descended through a pre-Thanksgiving slush and immediately froze themselves to my lawn. The courtyard hardened before the spring bulbs could be planted; it will likely thaw in February and kill any flowers who foolishly pretend it’s Michigan’s two week long spring.
California dwellers are crazy, surrounded by the dull pleasantness of green and gray office cubicles. Each evening’s dinner is an open-topped cruise to a new bistro; the snow is plastic.
No, no paradise for us. The desire for Eden—which we mistake for bliss—is simply and most importantly that: a desire. We mustn’t have it, but we must experience the merest hints of it. It’s enough for me to know that California exists and that I will never live there, that a long weekend is only a few weeks ahead, or that I may some night achieve more than seven hours of sleep. Complete Chaos deprives us of hope; Order is interminably boring.
An unexpected patch of black ice reminds me that I’m not in control, that there is always change, always danger, always living to do. Every story we cling to is the same, from the swordplay of Siegfried to the intrigue between Marcie and Ramsey on One Life to Live. The best literature, the mythic literature, strikes a balance between drama and respite, though. It offers the adventure with strategically paced reprieves, moments for just enough reflection to understand the value of the chaos. Achilles laments his lost “squire” during the siege on Troy; Arthur establishes a Roundtable code of chivalry so it may be corrupted; Clark trades a few love-struck moments with Lois before Lex Luthor draws him away.
In this way the pattern of living and the pattern of art are alike. John McClane’s adventures are not art in that he does little but “die hard” for 120 minute stretches. We enjoy the films as cheap thrills to break up our own dramas; they are brainless respite. But we are moved by the novels of Erdrich or Coetzee, writers who understand the need for chaos, the promise only of order.
As I struggle with a recalcitrant furnace (which currently heats only 2/3 of my home), surge through piles of permission slips for a New Orleans trip, and rehearse a twisted (and hated) marimba part for upcoming concerts, I have hints of something better. I can imagine what my home will be when the renovation is complete; I can share an hour of tea with a friend; and my cat will occasionally attempt to curl up in my lap (though I sit no place long enough to content it). Occasionally I even remember what it must be like to write, truly write. . . .
It—whatever it is—will never—never—all be done. And Michigan will dump ice and wind over us again. We should want nothing else, neither paradise nor consistency in life or art.
We await the Happily Ever, but that always ends the story . . . until the next dark winter sequel, Michigan Ice: With a Vengeance.
Steve Chisnell (um, on the right) is a teacher at Royal Oak (MI) High School. 
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