— Albert Camus
My Car
A Sidewalk
A Staircase
A Walking Path We Cleared The Night Before
The "Backyard"
A Job Well Done
Shoveling snow is about endurance
Patience
Taking care of and speaking up for yourself
Caring for your community
And your nose
Digging your way out of and through torrential storms
And saving your toes
Acting while you can
Preparation, anticipation, recreation
Doing what you can
The "I'm about 35min into shoveling and I'm having an existential crisis"
The knowing that someday this will all melt away, but feeling helpless because today is not that day.
So you dig through all that white powder
And pave your own way,
Not trying to get rid of it -
because you can't -
but living with it,
beside it,
piling it up so you can still see it,
staring back at you,
risking snow drift,
risking that the pile you just built could become spilt
Could destroy the pathway you just built,
Knowing you are doing your best,
Feeling as if this is all some test,
Doing what you can
Leaving what you can't
Because it's what you have to do right now to get where you need to go.
And you need not always do it alone.
And sometimes ... you just gotta buy a snow blower.
But even then -
There are some places snow blower's don't reach
And there are some lessons snow blower's don't teach
Like not to shovel loose snow into the wind,
only to have it to be thrown in your face, back again.
Or to appreciate a good shovel.
Or that friend who dug your car out for you.
Or the plow person who got up at 5am so the roads could be cleared for you by 8am
Or that thought that you don't have to live here.
Or that thought that some people choose to live here
And that there are people you can pay to do this.
If you can pay to do this.
"But there is a deep appreciation that comes from doing it yourself,"
I imagine some father saying,
"A strength," he says, holding his shovel proudly over his back.
A pride only paralleled by that of mowing a lawn and seeing the finish product.
Only, when you mow the lawn, typically, the grass and leaves get taken away, bagged up by an automatic mower, tossed in the trash, set out for disposal. Your freshly cut grass stands tall, proud of itself, a freshly combed hair on a balding man's head. Cleared and cleaned. Ready to impress in-laws and neighbors a-like. You step back and say, "Damn. That's a nice lawn."
But this?
Usually, by the time you're done you're too tired to sit their and appreciate your work. It's more like, "Are we done yet?" and "Where's my breakfast? I think I deserve a good breakfast after this." And that sense of entitlement that so many men of our history have is made clear to me. After working so hard, it does sound nice to have someone cater to your every need. I digress...
Don't get me wrong, there are absolutely gorgeously shoveled and cleared pathways during the winter season. But sometimes you're just lucky if you're able to scrape out something wide enough for you to get to your car. Sometimes you just gotta get it done. Sometimes you don't want to make a snowman just for fun.
So, don't ask me, "Who won?"
What's done is done.
Goodnight, everyone.