My heart is still thumping from shoveling snow in the driveway. And a bead of sweat rolls down my back inside my shirt. I’m hungry and I want hot chocolate. With marshmallows. And soup.
I didn’t go outside until mid-afternoon. Yet, it was hard to stop once I got going.
I don’t go sledding anymore. I don’t fall backward in the snow and swish my arms and legs or even press my face into a smooth place in the snow to get that creepy reverse sculpture that I’ve been seeing on Reddit. I don’t make snowmen. I should. Playing in the snow makes me feel like a kid, limitless, my hands and cheeks stung by the transition from the heat inside my body to the frost outside it. But, since it maintains my old-lady decorum , I like to shovel snow.
I pulled my trusty snow shovel out of the garage and plowed it down the hill in a one-lane rut that a tire could catch. Then, I trudged back up the hill, picked a spot approximately the width of tires and did it again. Then, I began to shovel in front of my car at the bottom of the driveway so I could get out in an emergency.
I really like the snowplow method of shoveling snow, but after the first run to the road in front of my car, I realized that if I didn’t lift the heavy scoop often enough, hunks of snow fell off the clean side that I’d just finished plowing. So, I crossed back and forth in a square pattern toward the road, tilting the full shovel up to make a neat wall at each edge of the driveway and eliminating the need to lift pounds of snow over and over. It wasn’t nearly as elegant or smooth as the plow method, but I made messy walls of snow on either side of the driveway that I hoped would keep the UPS guy in the right place on the asphalt.
Midway, I got hot and had to take off my hat and gloves and put them into my pockets. I unwrapped my scarf to cool off even more, but it kept sliding longer on one side than the other and tangling with the shovel. Twice, I found my hat lying in wet snow after it had fallen out. So I shoved it, sloppy and wet, deeper into my pocket. I felt cold and wet on my hip as its snow melted. I hoped I wouldn’t find it later, frozen to a rut, driven over, and dirty beyond recognition. That was my favorite hat. My sister knitted it for me.
If I wanted, I could have been done then. That was the least I needed to do. Everything else was gravy.
That was the joy of it. By then, I’d scattered nuts and dried fruit under the brush away from the house because this morning, a fluffed up bird landed on the windowsill in hopes of finding a tidbit where the snow had been protected by the eaves. Snow is hard for the birds, so I feed them when I think of it or they remind me, but I was acutely aware that the rats, the ones who did so much damage in Mike’s garage, would also find what I scattered about.
After the serious stuff, I noodled around. Once, I finished the minimum, the rut and place in front of my car, I could have gone inside. I could have.
But it was truly hard to stop. It always is.
By the time I was done, I’d scooped a nice line out for the mailman and the garbage truck to swoop by. I’d stepped back and waved at the snowplow who lifted his plow a bit and moved to the center of the road to keep from undoing the work I was doing. I would have told him not to alter his plan for me, that we needed to work in tandem to move all that snow, but the way he lifted his plow and the wave he gave me was kind.
I cleared my windshields and the top of my car. I’d even considered shoveling in front of the neighbor’s car. Her shovel was leaning right there on a tree. But just then, someone drove down an adjacent driveway and I felt like an interloper. Isn’t it funny how you can feel guilty even though you aren’t doing anything wrong?
I used to have this great, but old, REI rain jacket that they still sold in the store. Every single time I wore it to shop there, I wondered if anyone would think I’d shoplifted it, even when I knew it had a burn hole covered in duct tape from a close encounter with a fire and faded places on the shoulders.
Yeah, so I got that feeling, loitering around the neighbor’s driveway after I got my mail, so i went back to my own yard. I shoveled a line along the walkway instead. I kicked snow off my boxwoods and looked for other plants that might break from the weight of it.
By then, Teddy was sitting in the snow waiting for me. He’d zoomed back and forth and was done since there were no other dogs to wrestle with. Teddy’s starting to get old. So finally, I decided to put away my shovel and come inside.
Just now, Mike texted me that we’re expecting four more inches of snow in the middle of the night.
I’m glad I didn’t bother with the neighbor’s driveway.
Thank you for listening, jules