Snow Blessings

For what feels like the 6^th or 7^th time in the last two weeks, I am looking out my front door at a wonderland of fresh snow. It’s getting to look significantly less wonderful at this point. I was born and raised in New England, and lived through the infamous Blizzard of ’78, so bouts of snow in January and February are no surprise. Neither are snowdrifts 6 or 8 feet high. But this many significant storms in such a brief period of time are getting old. It’s like eating an entire gallon of ice cream in a single sitting: at first it’s pretty fun, but after a while it just makes you want to throw up.

But if the curses of all this snow are things like the kids missing school, trying to figure out where to put all the snow you’re shoveling, constantly running out of ice melt and washer fluid, scrubbing the trails of tracked-in snow off the kitchen floor every day, and general cabin fever, what are the blessings? I mean, there ARE times when we like snow, right? So how can I put a positive mental spin on all this snow? Here’s a list of the “snow blessings” that I came up with:

•         It looks pretty. Seriously, there’s nothing quite as lovely as looking out your bedroom window as the sun is coming up and seeing a soft, perfect blanket of white covering everything.
•         It sounds pretty. All the ambient noises are muffled, even silenced, in the falling snow. There’s a beautiful serenity in that stillness.
•         It gives me extra time with my kids. And I get creative about it. I do think of myself as a creative mom in general, but I sometimes get lazy. Spending a few snow days thinking up new and different games, concentrating on what my kids would most enjoy, just sitting on the floor with them DOING stuff together, is a wonderful blessing.
•         It makes me thankful for my husband. Especially today, when he’s away and I’m on my own to clear the driveway and the car, it reminds me how much work he does when it snows. It reminds me to be more appreciative of not only that, but of all the quiet, unnoticed things he does around the house: taking out the trash, replacing lightbulbs, hauling boxes up the attic stairs, charging my electric toothbrush, maintaining the pool, and probably a whole list of stuff I don’t even realize that he does. Thank you, sweetheart.
•         It gives you a chance to simply play. Making snow angels. Building snowmen. Going sledding, Having snowball fights. Making sno-cones and fake ice cream. Building a snow fort. Building a snow cave. Jumping into a big pile of soft fluffy snow with both feet. Blazing a trail through virgin snow. Finding footprints of animals and birds and trying to identify them. Catching snowflakes on your tongue.
•         It give you the chance to be neighborly. Taking a break for a few moments to lean on your shovel and catch up with a neighbor whom you rarely see. Shoveling out common sidewalks and fire hydrants. Snowblowing or shoveling out an older or injured neighbor. Sending your kids across the street to play with the neighbors’ kids or inviting them into your yard.
•         It’s cause for a whole list of delicious food and drink. Hot chocolate with whipped cream and/or marshmallows, hot tea in your favorite mug, homemade soups and stews, fresh bread, anything that can be made in a crockpot, chicken pot pie, lasagna, pot roast, shepherd’s pie, all those hearty casseroles your mom used to make for Sunday dinner. They’re comforting for body and soul.

So yeah, you might throw your back out trying to shovel the results of the latest storm on top of the results of the last seventeen storms. And you’ll probably run out of bread and milk and eggs and batteries and ice melt. You might even break a shovel. You’ll definitely break a sweat. But amidst your cursing, try and find a few of the blessings on this list. It won’t make spring come any earlier, but hopefully it’ll being at least a tiny bit of thaw to even the most frozen heart. 

Spring Me

It’s official: I am sick of winter.

I’m sick of snow. I’m sick of ice. I’m sick of cold.

I’m sick of snowplows and salt trucks and sanders and snowblowers and shovels.

I’m sick of mopping up dirty, salt-filled puddles of melted snow from my kitchen floor. I’m sick of starting to get ready for any trip 15 minutes sooner than usual so I can pack the kids into their mittens and hats and boots. I’m sick of scraping the ice off my car. I’m sick of worrying that my kids will fall on the ice. I’m sick of waiting anxiously for my husband to make it home from work during a snowstorm.

I’m sick of winter. I’m ready for spring.

It doesn’t help that many of my wiser friends are currently in warmer climes, whether for a well-timed vacation or because they were smart enough to move out of the snow belt. And it doesn’t help that they are posting photos of lovely tropical scenes involving palm trees, beaches, swimming pools, people wearing bathing suits and shorts, and NO SNOW.

Somebody spring me.

I need to see some crocuses and snowdrops poking their noses through a snowbank. I need lovesick chickadees calling to each other and cardinals warbling to their lady loves and robins chasing worms. I need daffodil buds and fuzzy pussy willows and forsythias exploding with golden blossoms.

But since I’m not expecting to see any of those outside my window any time soon, I guess I’ll have to settle for some virtual spring. 

Whew. I feel better now. Guess I’ve been sprung!

Sledding and Snow Angels

One of the best things about parenthood is reliving your own childhood. And winter is one of the best times to relive your childhood.

I grew up in one of the best winter places in the entire world. Not only did I grow up in New England, where the snowy winters provide the best sledding weather ever, but I grew up across the street from the perfect ice-skating pond, and not only did we have a small hill in our backyard that worked in a pinch for sledding, but we lived within walking distance from the best sledding in town.

Nun’s Hill was arguably the ideal sledding spot. It was high enough that you got a really long ride, steep enough that you got a really great ride, had enough of a flat area before the road that you could USUALLY stop before either crashing into a parked car or careening into the road, and it was enough work to walk back up the hill that the kids pooped out just around when the parents had had enough and were ready to head for home. And of course, Mom always had hot cocoa with marshmallows waiting for us by the time we managed to take off all our snow gear.

Oh, the snow gear. The snow pants with the little bib and the suspenders. The mittens that zipped tight over your sleeves. The hat that tied under your chin and had earflaps. The snow boots. And of course, the Wonder Bread bags with the multi-colored polka-dots that went inside your boots so your socks wouldn’t get wet when the snow inevitably crawled inside your boots. Oh, those were the days.

Today, as I was getting my kids dressed in all their layers to go sledding, I was thinking back to my own childhood. As I watched my husband pulling my daughter back up the hill on her sled, I recalled my own daddy pulling me and my sister up the hill on our wooden toboggan. As I sat down to race my son down the hill – the first time my middle-aged backside had graced a sled in over 20 years - I remembered how excited we were when my mom would join our sledding excursions. As I looked at the lineup of big and small boots dripping on the hallway runner, I was brought back to the brown plastic boot mat by the backdoor in my parents’ house. As I warmed up my daughter’s chilly pink cheeks with my own warm ones, I recalled both of my parents rubbing my cold hands with their warm ones.

And as my son and I made matching snow angels in the snow, I thought of my parents, looking down on me from above and laughing. I’m sure they were remembering the same memories that I was. And I hope that many years from now, as my children play in the snow with their own children, they will be thinking back to memories that are as joyful and precious as the ones I’m thinking about today.

 

Snowmageddon

Last night when I went to bed, I peeked out the window and watching the falling snow swirling in the air, hurling itself at the trees, whisking past the fairy lights hanging from the eaves, drifting past the dark cars in the driveway. This morning when I got up, I peeked out the window at a silent, white world. The drifting snow had sculpted itself into fantastical shapes, disguising the familiar objects in the yard, covering the landscape with swirls and cones and angles.

I love snowstorms. Of course, I don’t love digging out from under a foot of snow, or scraping a thick layer of ice off my car, or driving on ice-slick roads. But I love the blustery sound of the wind during a storm and the blanket of silence afterwards. I love watching the snow dancing on the wind in an intricately choreographed ballet. I love hearing the first peeps of the birds as they emerge after the snow ends, huddled and fluffing and eagerly seeking out food. I love the flash of a bright red cardinal against a pure-white snowbank. I love the icicles artistically dripping from power lines and eaves and car antennas. I love the squeak of damp snow under thick-soled boots. I love the wet thump of clots of snow sliding off a roof into the bushes below. I even love the pure, clean, cold smell of the air after a snowstorm.

By the end of the winter, I’ll be as sick of snow as everyone else, longing to see some green leaves peeping through the dirty gray slush. But now, right after the very first big storm of the season, I love it. The first storm of the season, to me, is like a dish of cool, icy sorbet to cleanse your palate. It perks up your senses, it cleanses and purifies, it readies you for what is yet to come.

So today, I will enjoy the snow. I will wait for the sun to sparkle on the ice and dazzle my eyes with its splendor. I will snuggle with a cozy blanket and a mug of steaming coffee and listen to the whistle of the wind. I will watch the birds storing up for the storms still to come. I will be thankful for my cozy house and my full refrigerator and my shoveling husband.

And a few months from now, when we’ve had a dozen storms like this, when we’ve dug out from under more inches of snow than I care to count, when we’ve risked our necks driving through white-outs and skidding over black ice, when I’m thoroughly sick of the nasty white stuff, I’ll look back at what I’ve just written, and wonder, “What the heck was I thinking back in December?”