Hitting the “Pause” Button… (Blizzard 2008)
I was too young to fully appreciate my first blizzard. Meaning that, as a teen-ager in 1978, I was more concerned with its relevance to my life than its details. A friend commenting on that epic (to Ohio) storm, remarked on how “the great snowfall” had landed upon a significant layer of ice to which I replied, “Really?” I remember little more than an abbreviated in-school schedule, and my recollections have that turn of events tied more specifically to “The Energy Crisis.” At that stage of my life, blowing and drifting snow would have found me more concerned about its effect on my hair than the roads. Shiver. Glad most of us get the chance to grow up a little…
And this past weekend, we got a brand new blizzard to reminisce about for the next thirty years or so. I noticed the details a little better this time.
I can see all the way across my street this morning. Frankly, I kind of miss the excitement of Friday and Saturday’s snowstorm. It was invigorating to be a pseudo-pioneer woman, albeit with plenty of supplies, heat, and nowhere I absolutely had to be. Hot shower capabilities make all the difference to us “pioneer women”.
Opening the garage door for Lily to run out on Saturday morning necessitated an immediate massive shoveling –not to clear the driveway but merely to close the garage door again. Officially, central Ohio’s surface was elevated some twenty inches by the white stuff. There was at least that much atop my personal patch of the state. The snow was knee deep on my driveway, and I stuck a yardstick into eighteen inches of accumulated flakes atop my air conditioning unit.
I ran both days. Friday still wasn’t that bad for joggers-who-don’t-know-better. On Saturday however, I had to trade running shoes for snow boots. And I took along my would-be sled dog, Lily. Twice (her idea).
The hardest part of running with Lily was closing my garage door. Each time I’d begin to punch the code into the keypad, I’d turn to find Lily panting happily beside me, directly within the sensor beam. I hadn’t seen her this excited since she rolled on a dead fish last summer.
Once we made it to the road, we trotted along the tire ruts of an earlier snowplow. I kept my feet moving, remembering the times I simply slid along behind her over ice last winter. A fun ride, as long as you have time to lean back on the leash and plant your feet first. The few neighbors we plodded past, intent upon clearing their driveways, commented on Lily’s obvious enthusiasm for the snow. One suggested snowshoes for me, which would have fit in nicely with my whole pioneer woman theme.
I threw snowballs to her when we returned. She missed most of them (tennis balls usually land on her nose too), but dug through the snow for them so enthusiastically I had to laugh. Always certain that she had finally found the “actual clump” I’d tossed to her, Lily would then lift her head in anticipation of my next pitch.
My kids called frequently with snow updates from their dad’s. The friend I’d planned to hang out with on Saturday got stuck in sunny Las Vegas. I didn’t even make it up the road to my sister’s, opting to be a happy hermit instead. A fresh snowfall can fill in the hollows and soften the edges of so many places…
Today, the world returns to “normal.” A couple of SUVs have already bounced past this morning. The snow will reportedly melt by midweek, exposing again the assortment of tree limbs and branches Lily insists on hauling from woods to side yard just as fast as we toss them back.
It’s been nice. Quietly exhilarating… To write and clean and kind of catch up on life a little… I often
fantasize about hitting a pause button on the world around me so that I can catch my breath and progress a little closer to where I think I should be. I’m not in any hurry to hit “play” again.
I’m savoring the last few moments of a world forced to hold still for a bit.
RELATED POSTS:
“Snow and Ice? Nice…” (Hocking Hills Region; Part 1)
“A Winter’s Walk” (Hocking Hills Region; Part 2)
