Pretty big snowstorm predicted for tomorrow – and here I thought, early-March, that we’d dodged all that.

Worst on Wednesday, and I don’t have to be on campus, so I can enjoy the views from my living room in Garrett Park.

Have been making many fires, enjoying hearth and home. Herds of young deer race about at the top of our hill. I watch them while the fire crackles. Aroma of sweet smoke. Silence all around.

Or the sound of many birds – some cardinals have built a nest in the house gutters, and the babies pip when the food comes in. There are hawks, high up, and, at night, owls. These also are things to see and hear.

John, next door neighbor, waylays me as I gather wood – wants to talk about the nature park we share. His big camera is around his neck; his big cat is tied up a few feet away. John misses his mother, who died two months ago. This what he does instead of visiting her.

He tells me everything he’s seen – a large fox, two hawks…

It’s true that you can become engrossed in the wildlife. The carnage alone – rabbit skulls, fallen cooper’s hawks – is fascinating. I’ve found antlers, of course; and bright feathers.

With the large herd of deer there’s deershit along all the paths I’ve created. They turn out to be deer paths. Doing all I can to make their lives more pleasant. If I leave a molecule of taste on a discarded plastic container, racoons take it out of the recycling and then drop it deep in the forest. I go through, every couple of weeks, cleaning out their trash.

I’m right now sitting surrounded by my students at a very sunny seminar table – windows the length of the walls on two sides. They are taking their midterm. Crayola blue sky, not a cloud. Sharp edges of colorless federal buildings against the blue.

The city is quiet. Faint engine sounds and nothing else. It’s only 9:30. Rush hour has quieted down, and people are settling into their offices. Far-off contrails up there. But really, little to see.

Only the beautiful faces of my students. They are hunching, writing. They are sniffing, coughing, blowing their noses. Yes, to me, as they scratch their ways across blue books, they are very beautiful.

Single-space, double-space, use both sides of the page? They have asked me these questions, and I have answered them.

There’s a monastic stillness even here, a twenty-first century urban university. A quiet blue sky and only the white noise of heat and lighting. I’ve left the door to the room open because it’s quiet in the hallway too. An occasional chat among adjuncts in a nearby office is all.

I keep the time on the blackboard. 10:04, I write.

Normalcy is the great thing. John Wilpers’ New York Times obit ends by quoting him:

“All of this was very sad,” he said of the war. “I didn’t want to do anything to describe it as wonderful. What happened happened. Like any war, it should be regretted.”

Absence of war. Absence of conflict. Now the Presidential helicopter flies by the seminar room (even the helicopter is quiet). Twelve years ago Connie, the English department office manager, watched from her office as the Pentagon burned. I never forget where I am, what my city is. Its bland buildings and bright sky never fool me.

Still, it’s not Karachi. Metro authorities instruct us in the dimensions of dangerous packages, but we’re not really looking. We’re trusting the normalcy of the setting, our lucky country, our city the heart of our lucky country.

In 2000, Garrett Park’s median family income was $126,662. Widowers like John Wilpers, father of my oldest friend, live well, in houses whose value has quintupled since they bought them.

In my house, Munro Leaf – author of Ferdinand, a peaceful book, lived and died.