Column: Notes from Home

The third time I shoveled the driveway and sidewalk Christmas Eve is when I decided that it was time to stop the madness.

“Enough,” I cried to the gods of winter. “Cease your relentless punishment of the mortals of the northern plains. Have mercy.”

My cries must have been muffled by the falling snow or drowned out by the grinding of the snow blowers up and down the street. Or perhaps I didn’t offer up the correct kind of sacrifice, oxen and virgin princesses both being scarce in the neighborhood. Or else the gods of winter are simply cruel.

At any rate, this was their answer to my plea: The glaciers covering what used to be my front lawn advanced another few feet. The snowplow pushed a mountain of slush across the bottom of the driveway. We were trapped again.

The first time I shoveled that morning, the snow was light, fluffy. Fun was the word. The sun, hidden behind heavy clouds, hovered just above the horizon and dim blue light filled the air. The falling snow looked peaceful and the usual sounds of traffic from the highway were silenced. The only sound was the crunch of my own boots on the snow and the scrape of my shovel on the pavement.

Shoveling over the remains of the other winter storms was good exercise. Up and over each load of snow went, shovel by shovel, exercising my arms, shoulders and back, getting my heart pumping. I re-entered the house energized and ready for a well-earned cup of hot tea and some buttered toast.

The second time? That wasn’t quite as much fun. The snow was still light, but now my arms and shoulders were sore and my back was aching from the earlier efforts. The piles on both sides of the driveway were nearly as tall as me. The sweat on my brow froze. My nose ran, snot congealing and freezing in my beard.

The worst part was watching my neighbors, who had emerged, finally, from their cocoons and were noisily — easily — blowing the snow aside with their mechanical monsters. What took me most of my morning to clear took them 15 minutes. I don’t think they even got sweaty under their layers.

I’m not well-trained for this kind of weather. Growing up in Tucson meant that I didn’t even learn how to use a gas-powered lawn mower, let alone a snow blower. Both of the snow blowers I’ve used in the past — stored in the parsonage garage, but property of a congregation my wife was serving — didn’t fare so well in my care. One had to be taken away and buried. The other was repaired but didn’t come back to our garage. That was a wise decision. Except for computers, all mechanical things decay in my presence.

But I digress. That third time of labor, after receiving the aforementioned gifts of the gods of winter, I raised up my face to heaven, blinking away snowflakes as they plummeted into my frozen eyes. “Why? Why?” I cried. It was then, of course, that I noticed the daggers of ice and drifts of snow looming from the eaves, threatening to send lances of ice and avalanches onto our defenseless heads.

What to do? What to do?

I pondered my options, standing there in snow up to my shins, starting to lose contact with my toes and fingers. I could retreat indoors and meditate, Zen-like, on a cushion in the middle of the living room floor, trying to achieve a mental state in which I would no longer care about the towering mountains of snow outside. I could strip off my winter gear and run screaming down the street.

Or I could get a bigger shovel with a longer handle.

I may not have born in the Midwest, I may have grown up in sunny, snow-free southern Arizona, but I knew there was really only one option. By that afternoon, driveway, sidewalk and eaves were all clear. My body aches, in all sorts of places. But surrender to the gods of winter? Never!

Albert Lea resident David Rask Behling teaches at Waldorf College in Forest City, Iowa, and lives with his wife and children in Albert Lea. His column appears every other Tuesday.