The first Monday morning of 2009 began at 3:30am, when consciousness gained a toehold in my brain and some annoying neuron whispered that I had to be at work in 5 hours. Then sudden wakefulness in my bladder nudged the rest of my brain to attention and, after a stealth trip to the bathroom, I laid in bed and begged myself “sleep! sleep now!” At around 6am I managed to sustain a fitful repose for 25 minutes before the alarm sounded and Monday morning officialy began.

Coming off of two weeks of near-vacation, I had difficulty moving with purpose. In the shower I stared at my feet and chided myself for forgetting to clip my toenails while hot water sprayed my neck. In front of the mirror, I flossed, I tweezed, I gently dabbed moisturizer onto dry spots of skin. At the table, I dawdled over my oatmeal while engrossed in an article about winter camping in AMC magazine. When I stepped out of the front door, I was 18 minutes behind my normal schedule, but the residual effects of the vacation left me unable to muster enough stress to feel concern. I figured that I could make up part of the time delta by juicing up my pace during the 1.4 mile walk to the subway station.

Unfortunately I neglected to make my routine check of the weather and had no idea that, thanks to pre-dawn freezing drizzle, virtually every concrete surface in metro Boston was coated in slick ice. After throwing handfuls of sand on our front steps and sidewalk, I wobbled down the slippery street and found out pretty fast that no one else had bothered to treat their sidewalks for the benefit of the lowly pedestrian. (You are invited to my pity party).

I decided to walk in the street, which was slightly less slick than the sidewalk. Traffic forced me to tread near the piles of black slush that flanked the road. Would it be better to die of a broken neck via a slip-and-fall or a hit-and-run? I hobbled to the bike path in arrested steps, with the occasional heart-lurching near-fall. I wish I had strapped on the family crampons.

On the icy bike path, a woman walking about 50 feet in front of me skidded awkwardly and fell backwards on her bottom. She appeared to be able-bodied enough to survive a demoralizing tumble, so I allow myself the comfort of thinking There’s a woman whose having a worse Monday morning than me. But I am careful not to lord my ice-walking prowess over the fallen, for surely there is a fair amount of karmic luck involved in staying upright while locomoting across a sheet of gleeming ice.

Baby steps. Baby steps. I check my watch and grimace. My lateness has blossomed into 30 minutes. I haven’t even step foot in the office and already my spine is ratcheted with physical, mental, and emotional stress that rivals pre-holiday levels. Alewife Station is within sight, its vast fortress of concrete looming rudely above the scenic strip of nature that surrounds the bikepath. I manage to overtake a portly gentlemen wearing a suit and tan overcoat who is comically inching his way towards the subway. Baby steps.

As I approach Alewife Station, there is a T employee liberally throwing a mixture of sand and rock salt onto the sidewalk. He is a squat Hispanic man with a etched-in scowl, and he tosses a handful of his concotion three feet in front of me. I loosen my gait and walk over the grit. Immediately my confidence, my hope, my sanity is restored. It’s just what I needed to face Monday morning. It’s what we all need sometimes, an angel to throw sand and rock salt onto the slippery path of life.