Let it Snow...Nooooo, Let it Stop

We are having an unusual winter here in southwest Ohio. We have over 20 inches of snow on the ground and we may break all records for snow in February. Kind of neat since I grew up in Minnesota and Maine where it snowed a lot when I was a kid. I remember playing in the snow, making snow angels, falling backwards off the top of the fence into the soft cushion of deep snow, making snow forts and tunnels, and being dwarfed by huge piles of snow left by the plows. Those piles seemed like they were ten feet tall, at least. I know things appear a lot smaller if you go back as an adult, but I do not want to discover that those snow piles were only 3 feet tall. No way they were that little. I remain faithful in my belief in howling blizzards that left feet and feet of snow on the ground.

Of course now I have to shovel the driveway, especially because my other half has been in Europe the entire time we've had these two storms that dumped on us. I like shoveling the drive - it makes me feel like all my weightlifting and workouts have been for something practical. My back got a little sore during the fifth shovel session in two days, but I'll be fine tomorrow. My carpal-tunnel affected wrists may take a bit more time to heal, however.

It was not all shoveling. I got to take some walks on borrowed snowshoes, following animal tracks one day and searching for them the next because so much snow had fallen in the interim. Snow pelting my face, I found it invigorating to be out in the storm moving through the woods and fields under my own power. I have always loved storms. When I was a teen living on a lake in Maine with my family, I slept on the screen porch. I loved listening to the approaching storms - the thunder rumbling softly in the distance, coming closer across the lake and arriving with the full timpani of crashing thunder and heart-splitting lightning. The whoosh of the rain would drive me off the porch. Liking storms and sleeping in the rain are two different things. I remember once swimming in the rough waves of Sebago Lake as a storm approached. Those waves were so big I body-surfed them for quite some time. After choking on several mouthfuls of lake water, I gave up and came in to shore feeling tired and invigorated at the same time. And once my dad and I sailed our little scow of a sailing barge on our lake in the tailwinds of a hurricane. Yehaa! That little flat-bottomed heavy-weight actually heeled steeply and scooted wildly through the rough lake waters. What fun that was.

Being in a snowstorm feels different from those summer storms. It is quieter even with the wind swirling the snow into my face. It also feels more dangerous. I made sure I had my phone on me in case I fell and broke something. I'm more cautious now than I was when I was 17. That's because I've lived long enough to see many things happen to many people that a seventeen-year-old wouldn't countenance happening to them. The longer you live, the humbler you get. You are no longer protected by the hubris of youth; you know that anything can happen to anyone at any time. But that doesn't stop you from going out into the storm and experiencing nature in her power and beauty.

Good thing I like the snow. We are supposed to get another storm in four days. Even better, I won't be the only one home to shovel.

So many poems about snowmen exist that I was delighted to find this one.

The Snow-Woman by Angela Sorby

Her body's weighty, two snow-balls,
and so white she leeches red paint from the sled.
The whole yard resembles her: white getting whiter
as if it were all in her head.
Yesterday she fell in a trance from the sky.
I gave her buttons and two coal eyes.
She is an ambassador from the Old Order,
from the ice force that carved out the Kettle Moraine.
Her mineral rights are clear: she shares the past
with the stars and carries a stillness so vast it moves
like a glacier across the yard.
She asks nothing of me. I ask nothing in return.
I am genetically closer to mushrooms
than to her. Her roots are elsewhere, like the roots
of the daughter I will never bear,
and so things settle between us.

Angela Sorby

Bird Skin Coat
The University of Wisconsin Press