Shoveling Out

It snowed all night and this morning we awoke to a total of perhaps eight or ten inches of snow, which prompted me to take exactly the same photos of the same deck furniture, documenting these slightly greater depths.

Our Mini Cooper does not like snow; she is like most of the cats we have owned (and unlike most of the dogs we have owned), too delicate a creature for winter.  She seemed to be huddled up sullenly under the thick blanket of snow, her British mirrors just barely visible.

I posted the photo on Facebook.  "I don't think we'll be riding with the top down anytime soon."   Anthony posted a photo of Everett's convertible top sagging and said he might not have one soon.  "I just went out and scraped it off," I replied.  "It's a heavy snow!  Shoveling our driveway will have to substitute for my long run this morning."  

Then I got to work shoveling snow, one of the most enjoyable activities I know, I suppose because it reminds me of my New England childhood.  My brother and I would first clear our own driveway after a heavy snow (that was the rule my Dad pronounced); the snow-piles along our driveway one year were so high that it was difficult to throw a shovelful on top - one year we had to haul some down beside the garage in the wheelbarrow.  Once our driveway had been cleared to my Dad's satisfaction, we would head out to make a few dollars shoveling our neighbors' driveways.  What great memories!  I remember snow so deep that we had to lift each shovelful off in sections, a third at a time.  At the end of the day, we would return with wet gloves and stiff fingers, the bottoms of our jeans wet and frozen stiff until they thawed beside a heat vent, warm and glowing with pride, a few wet bills stuffed in our pockets. 

So I was remembering my Dad and my brother, both of them gone now, as I carefully shoveled the walk, and then the driveway, straight lines out to the as-yet unplowed road.  The hush was disturbed from time to time as an evergreen bough would release its held fistful of snow and crash down to the driveway.  What a sweet fragrance there was to the air!  And the great satisfaction of simple work, shovelful by shovelful, as I eventually took off my coat and then my vest, warming willingly to this work.  As the old Zen saying has it (amended for the task before me):

"Before enlightenment, chop wood, shovel snow;

After enlightenment, chop wood, shovel snow."

There is no more chopping of wood since we installed gas logs in our fireplace, but I have always enjoyed that task, too, in the same way - the slow, methodical work, stopping from time to time to stretch and look around, to breathe deeply, with patience and mindfulness rather than hurrying to complete the task. 

And now I have finished, almost without noticing that it has happened, and we will await the snowplow to rumble down the road and connect us once more to the wider world.