The Blizzard of 2006
This is my fourth winter in Colorado, which, blizzard or not, can be said to have real winters, certainly compared to the Texas or Florida of my prior residencies. I've been through quite a few snows, even snow storms here over the past few years. But this is different. Snow drifts piled up 5 feet deep, my car unrecognizable in the street.
Walking around tonight, hours after the last flakes had fallen and after a day of heavy work shoveling, I can tell the difference in my feelings towards this snow and others I have been through here. The most recent snow, just a few weeks ago, I didn't lift a finger a shovel the walk ways. Perhaps it was the relative novelty of snow in my mind. I WANTED the snow- I enjoyed the even whiteness of it, and when neighbors shoveled the sidewalk I was almost upset- "it will be gone soon enough, so why ruin the effect faster?". This morning I had no such sentiment. Sure, there was that hard first scoop with the shovel, the first break in the perfect deep cake to start shoveling the back walkway to the garbage cans. But something about the wonderful verticality of the cut through the snow, the sharp contrast of the wet concrete with the starkness of the blizzards leavings. As soon as I was able to take a few steps through that trench with no shock of cold down my legs, the security of sure footing instead of the precarious and unreliable drifts and compacted ice underfoot, I felt the desire to reclaim my little piece of turf from the grip of this thing that had descended so completely.
All in all I probably shoveled over 1000 cubic feet of snow. By hand- no snow blower. The neighborhood came alive in a way I had not seen it in all the time I have lived here. Every able bodied man with a snowblower proudly blew out the driveways and sidewalks of neighbors and strangers and little paths across streets to connect the sidewalks. We live on a small street so there would be no snow plow. This connected and bonded us together. We depended on one another. We were proud to do right by our neighbors. I shoveled out my and both neighbors sidewalks, then most of my driveway before a friend with a blower came in to clear away the remainder while I trailed behind his work, cutting out the compacted ice left by the machines like a surgeon, down to the concrete bone.
I rested, then went out for milk. Today was milk delivery day, but not even the mail was going to come today. I called the closest grocery and gas station ahead of time, and there was no answer, but I went anyway out of hope that they would open before I got there or had been simply too busy to answer when I had called. But they were closed. There is a special trust that forms under these conditions. I asked two people in the parking lot of the grocery if I could get a lift towards main street where more stored might be open. A girl I'd never seen, much less met, offered me, a complete stranger, a ride with no hesitation. She saw the butcher was open and knew they carried milk, and dropped me off. I bought milk and pork chops, and slogged gladly through slush and icy drifts towards home.
I was exhausted. I napped. I ate. I read. I admired the results of the power of the storm, now past, and admired my own efforts to undo it. I took as long and hot a shower as I can remember, and felt knots and tensions unwind, joints pop and salty layers of skin become soft and smooth again. The hardness of the people who, a hundred and more years ago, had settled these plains dawned on me with a non-academic reality.
As I walked the dogs through the darkness, the day I had done my part to help a whole state, an entire city, my neighborhood, my little block, to dig out from one of the biggest snowstorms in living memory, I saw everything in a different light. It was hard not to. We walked, not on grass or on lawns, but through trenches of varying width and thoroughness, some carved down to road, some just the compaction of snow into a mangled surface of ice. The whole state of Colorado was, today, not the series of artifacts built upon the surface of the earth as we usually see mans creation, but instead a series of little channels cut out of a white sea that it would not swallow us up.
This message written by a real human being. If you prefer an automated message, please upgrade your toaster with a voice synthesizer.
Walking around tonight, hours after the last flakes had fallen and after a day of heavy work shoveling, I can tell the difference in my feelings towards this snow and others I have been through here. The most recent snow, just a few weeks ago, I didn't lift a finger a shovel the walk ways. Perhaps it was the relative novelty of snow in my mind. I WANTED the snow- I enjoyed the even whiteness of it, and when neighbors shoveled the sidewalk I was almost upset- "it will be gone soon enough, so why ruin the effect faster?". This morning I had no such sentiment. Sure, there was that hard first scoop with the shovel, the first break in the perfect deep cake to start shoveling the back walkway to the garbage cans. But something about the wonderful verticality of the cut through the snow, the sharp contrast of the wet concrete with the starkness of the blizzards leavings. As soon as I was able to take a few steps through that trench with no shock of cold down my legs, the security of sure footing instead of the precarious and unreliable drifts and compacted ice underfoot, I felt the desire to reclaim my little piece of turf from the grip of this thing that had descended so completely.
All in all I probably shoveled over 1000 cubic feet of snow. By hand- no snow blower. The neighborhood came alive in a way I had not seen it in all the time I have lived here. Every able bodied man with a snowblower proudly blew out the driveways and sidewalks of neighbors and strangers and little paths across streets to connect the sidewalks. We live on a small street so there would be no snow plow. This connected and bonded us together. We depended on one another. We were proud to do right by our neighbors. I shoveled out my and both neighbors sidewalks, then most of my driveway before a friend with a blower came in to clear away the remainder while I trailed behind his work, cutting out the compacted ice left by the machines like a surgeon, down to the concrete bone.
I rested, then went out for milk. Today was milk delivery day, but not even the mail was going to come today. I called the closest grocery and gas station ahead of time, and there was no answer, but I went anyway out of hope that they would open before I got there or had been simply too busy to answer when I had called. But they were closed. There is a special trust that forms under these conditions. I asked two people in the parking lot of the grocery if I could get a lift towards main street where more stored might be open. A girl I'd never seen, much less met, offered me, a complete stranger, a ride with no hesitation. She saw the butcher was open and knew they carried milk, and dropped me off. I bought milk and pork chops, and slogged gladly through slush and icy drifts towards home.
I was exhausted. I napped. I ate. I read. I admired the results of the power of the storm, now past, and admired my own efforts to undo it. I took as long and hot a shower as I can remember, and felt knots and tensions unwind, joints pop and salty layers of skin become soft and smooth again. The hardness of the people who, a hundred and more years ago, had settled these plains dawned on me with a non-academic reality.
As I walked the dogs through the darkness, the day I had done my part to help a whole state, an entire city, my neighborhood, my little block, to dig out from one of the biggest snowstorms in living memory, I saw everything in a different light. It was hard not to. We walked, not on grass or on lawns, but through trenches of varying width and thoroughness, some carved down to road, some just the compaction of snow into a mangled surface of ice. The whole state of Colorado was, today, not the series of artifacts built upon the surface of the earth as we usually see mans creation, but instead a series of little channels cut out of a white sea that it would not swallow us up.
This message written by a real human being. If you prefer an automated message, please upgrade your toaster with a voice synthesizer.
posted by Unknown | 5:11 PM
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