Winter has finally arrived. After a morning spent in shirtsleeves even in the drizzle � it was 65 degrees � the temperature began to fall around 2:30 and it�s still falling. It�s now barely in the twenties at home and the snow has begun to fall.

Here on campus near the lake, it is considerably warmer. Still, the precipitation can�t quite decide if it�s rain or snow, but is still erring on the side of the former and is coming down in great fat half-frozen drops.

The Music Department is even more deserted than usual. Classes are over and only a few like me are running review sessions. There is a miserable-looking group taking a campus tour in the slush, huddled over their paper coffee cups below my office window. We had a good turnout for the review session, although as usual, the people who most needed it were not there. But then, I don�t have any illusions about people feeling like music class is as important as, for example, their econ seminar. I know most of them are there (or in this case, aren�t there) to check a requirement of their list. Still, several of them appear headed for a second trip through the course.

I have been feeling almost euphoric since last night�s yoga class when I managed to do a full bridge pose (belly facing the ceiling, face pointed toward the floor, holding myself up with straight arms ands and legs on my tiptoes) completely unassisted for the first time since I was, I don�t know, maybe 10 or 11? It was a fantastic feeling, but the sense of the pose and also the feeling that I was doing something I never thought I�d be able to do again � and I did it three times! Without falling on my head!

Sometimes I wonder how much the therapeutic effects of yoga have to do with the sense of turning back time, of returning to a younger body, a younger self. I also wonder about the link between a strong and flexible body and a strong and flexible mind. I�ve long labored in a pretty profound division of body and mind and yoga is helping me put it back together somehow. Also, it�s pretty much the only exercise that I don�t find boring. It is mental and physical in equal parts.

It seems that ostensibly useless skills seem to give me the most pleasure in my own abilities. Teaching music history, something that most people don�t think they need to know. Bending backwards until I can see my own feet from behind. I seem to have cultivated a life of the esoteric. But strangely, I really don�t give a damn.

And now, I must lug my 80 pound (no exaggeration!) suitcase of overdue library books across the slushy quad to check them in and back out again before heading home where, I hope, we will then get enough slow to go sledding tomorrow.

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