Last night snow squalls whirled through Amherst, and this morning the ground is coated with a rough half-inch of white, my first snow of the season, glimmering faintly under the black pines beyond the window.

Yesterday we went on a desultory outing to the college natural history museum, to the used bookstore; we drove into Northampton for dinner; we dropped like stones into bed as if we'd actually been working hard at something.

And now, today, we'll head back north, the children will head south, and Holiday A will fade into the frantically marketed antics of Holiday 2.

I'm not gloomy, though I may sounds gloomy. I guess I'm just tired, though I'm not under-slept. Maybe I'm not even tired; maybe there isn't a word for what I am.

But the snow is a kind of antidote.