Tag: snow

Flames

It snowed last night. When I went outside this morning to shovel my driveway, the air carried with it the faintest scent of spring. This happens every winter but it’s usually later in the season. For most of my life, early February has been a time of unrelenting ice.

I don’t mind shoveling snow. If it’s not that deep, I actually prefer to shovel it by hand rather than use the snowblower. It’s good exercise, and the snowblower is heavy and difficult to use. Clearing the driveway with the snowblower often feels like just as much work as shoveling, and I don’t really like all the noise it makes.

Today, shoveling snow was a welcome distraction from the news reports detailing all the ways in which my country, the United States, is being consumed by flames. I haven’t been able to sleep because I can see the end in the fascists’ means.

They’re using an old playbook, one created in 46 BCE by Julius Caesar, who was made dictator for life by the Roman Senate in the aftermath of his civil war, a conflict of his own design that reduced Roman society to rubble, making it possible for him to take down the 300-year-old republic.

Hitler used Germany’s economic instability as a cudgel to destroy its democratic institutions and institute racist economic and social policies, fueling his rise from chancellor to Fürher in less than eighteen months. If you’ve been wondering what the real purpose of our current administration’s nonsensicle trade tariffs might be, look no further.

This is the big picture, which is bad enough, but my real anxiety stems from more personal concerns: My daughter is a teacher at urban elementary school where many of the students are immigrants. If her school is invaded by ICE agents, I know she’ll stand up to them. She would do anything to protect her kids. I’m sickened by the thought of what might happen to her.

My husband was laid off from his job last September. I’m even more worried about him finding a new one now that I was before. The economy is poised to crash. The stock market already has.

I resent being made to feel this way. I, like many people, have worked hard all my life. I’ve earned everything I have. I’ve been a good citizen, paid my taxes. I don’t deserve it.

I also know that the fear and anxiety everyone is feeling right now is intentional on the part of our sham government: A nation of people who fear for their families and futures will agree to almost anything.

This is isn’t the post I wanted to publish today. I wanted to write something else, about music actually. But this is where I am, where all of us are right now. The best I can hope for is to be proved wrong.

ENP

Lost World II

When I was growing up, there was a woman who went to our church whose family owned an old farm in central Massachusetts. One day each winter, she would invite anyone who wanted to come to go sledding in the farm’s apple orchard. Everyone looked forward to this outing, especially the kids. The orchard’s sledding hill was steep and wide. It seemed to go on almost forever, ending only at the point where its snow-covered grass met the January sky.

I can still remember the smell of the woodsmoke drifting out of the farmhouse’s chimney when we dragged our sleds out of the car. My sister and I had the cheap plastic ones you could buy at the grocery store, the red kind with yellow handles on the sides. One family always brought a four-seat toboggin, which was fun the first few times you tried it. But the enormous wooden sled would inevitably be abandoned once we got tired of dragging it back up the hill.

Some kids had the round, inflatable sleds that mimicked the look of tires. These were by far the fastest, barely skimming the surface of the snow as they flew by. The flat, plastic blue sleds were our least favorite. They were hard to straighten out after spending months rolled into tubes for storage. They were so lightweight, if you weren’t paying attention they would often slide right down the hill without you.

Most of the adults hung out in the warm farmhouse, sipping mulled wine as they watched us through its antique windows, their wavy glass panes distorting the view like the mirrors in a funhouse. But a few grownups always came outside with us, usually fathers. Sometimes they would sled, too, but mostly they supervised, standing at the top of the hill before the rows of dark, gnarled trees, arms folded, ready to jump at the first sign of a crash or injury. 

Eventually, a pair of mothers would be seen climbing the hill—there always seemed to be two. They’d converse for a bit with the fathers, their long down coats brushing at their ankles, before telling us we needed to come inside and warm up. 

Even on sunny days, it was always bitterly cold. Your hair and mittens would freeze solid and you’d lose the feeling in your fingers and toes. It wasn’t like our winters are now, where the temperature often rises to well above freezing, melting all the snow and ice and leaving behind yawning pools of mud.

Inside, the farmhouse smelled like wet wool and smoldering maple logs. Built in the seventeenth century, its floors were made from foot-wide old growth pine boards, grooved in the places where countless feet had walked across them: farmers wearing handmade boots, running toddlers, women carrying pies. You could feel the centuries of life in the place. It leaked right out of the horsehair plaster walls.

We drank hot cocoa from paper cups and ate cookies sprinkled with sugar while sitting on a hand-braided rug in the front of the woodstove, our boots piled up by the door. Steaming mittens and damp socks decorated the stove’s cast iron surface. Some kids, mostly boys, kept their snow pants on, waiting for the moment they would be allowed to go outside again. 

Our second time out never lasted as long as the first. We always seemed to get cold faster, most likely because we were soaked to the skin, but also because the temperature would start to drop as night came on. Our last sled run of the day often ended just as the sun settled on the western horizon.

On the drive home, my sister and I would usually fall asleep in the car. 

The last time I went sledding at the farm, I was in the sixth grade. The family who owned the land sold it after that. Today, the old farmhouse is long gone. The apple orchard is occupied by a Target store. It was built high on the sledding hill, so you can see it from the highway. 

I drive by the place sometimes. I always wonder if there’s anything left that I might recognize, a stray apple tree maybe, or a glacial erratic that was too large to move. I’ve never checked, though, even after all these years. I suppose I don’t really want to know. I prefer to remember the farm the way it was, full of laughter and magic, all covered in a deep layer of snow.

ENP

*NO AI TRAINING

Every Idle Hour

My mother took every opportunity she could to complain about winter. She hated the cold, snow, and the short days we experience here in New England so much that her negativity spilled over into autumn. She could never understand why anyone would get excited about the foliage changing from green to red or would look forward to a crackling fire on a fall evening when these things meant ice and darkness were lurking around the corner.

I’ve always liked winter, though. During the rest of the year, I often long for the stillness the season brings. I love staring out the picture window in our living room when it snows, watching the swirling white flakes pile up and form drifts in the wind.

I never learned how to ski and I’m a subpar ice skater, but my husband and I hike frequently in the wintertime. The first time I remember experiencing complete silence was a few years ago, on a trail coming off of Hedgehog Mountain in New Hampshire. We paused to look at some animal tracks and when the crunching of our snowshoes stopped, we heard nothing but the sound of our own breathing: no cars, no airplanes, no people, no wind. It was one of the best moments of my life.

Nothing makes me feel more alive than the cold air on my face while I’m walking among the bare bones of the trees. I love cuddling up to my husband between our fluffy flannel sheets, cozy and warm as the temperature drops below zero outside. Rarely do I feel more privileged than when I’m the first being to make tracks across a snow-covered landscape. I like wearing sweaters and knit hats and wool long underwear. Few things are more spectacular than the pink-and-orange glow of a winter sunset.

Winter allows me the space and time to think, work, rest, and recharge. As the snow falls, I’m working to finish two book manuscripts that have been sitting on my hard drive since before the COVID-19 pandemic started, when concentrating on anything became nearly impossible.

If you’re anything like my mother, don’t let the cold get you down. If you let it, this enchanted season can warm your heart and bones.

ENP

NOTE: If you were a fan of my Living Madly column in Merrimack Valley Magazine, which ceased publication as of December 2021, you’ll be happy to know that I’ll still be writing the column. Beginning on January 20, 2022, Living Madly will be published the third Thursday of each month on RichardHowe.com.