We had another big storm here in the Northeast yesterday. And my little town on Long Island was hit particularly hard. The official totals say 18-20 inches, but I dunno 'bout that. Maybe I was only shoveling where the snow had drifted. Because it was clearly over two feet in most spots around our home.
But that's okay, because (as I've mentioned before here) I really don't mind shoveling snow. I mean, I don't look forward to it. I'd rather spend each winter on a beach someplace in the South Pacific with tropical ladies handing me tropical drinks with tropical umbrellas in them. In the drinks, not the ladies. Ahem. But as one of those things that I've had to do all my life in the wintertime, it's just something I've learned to be peaceful about and kinda enjoy.
Enjoy shoveling snow? Relax...I'm not coming to your house to dig you out. But since it has to be done, I've made my peace with it.
And I take a practical and (IMO) thoroughly efficient route when taking on the task. If I think about what needs to be done in totality, I'm gonna get overwhelmed. So I concentrate on one stretch of walkway/driveway/stairway at a time. I need to. Because we live at the bottom of a hill and I have to dig myself UP to the street level where we keep our cars during snowstorms. Just getting to the street usually takes a couple of hours after a heavy snowfall. Once I get up there, I usually have a bit of help. The guy next door has a plow and he cleans out the area in front of the house pretty well. Just a little clean up on my part. Then it's on to get the cars cleaned off and moved. We park them down the road in front of some woods so that the plows can really clean out the front of the house. Gia helps out with that. Cleaning off the cars and powering through the drifts while I'm cleaning up parking spots out front. Then it's making sure the mailman can get to our mailbox, and I'm done.
So I take it slow and I don't stop until it's done. Do this patch, then do that patch, then onto the next. Keep it going, keep it slow, get it done. And since it's repetitive and mostly automatic on my part, it allows me to pause every once in a while and admire some of the beauty of the hills and trees covered in snow and the iced-over harbor out of our back door.
Sometimes it's comforting to move through life two feet at a time.
PS - Accidentally posted this early yesterday...so you might see it twice in your feed reader. Lucky you.
8 comments:
You are such a nerd... :-)
when life gets overwhelming i take it twenty minutes at a time so i completely understand this mindset. it also helps that i find snow just so damn gorgeous.
love your attitude.
if you like it so much, why dont you get your ass over my place and help dig ME out?
We got 6 inches again, same as on December 26. But this time we saw blacktop by 1pm instead of 4 days later.
RW - totally.
Becky - Yeah, I think snow is pretty remarkable too.
Slyde - Go back and read the third paragraph.
Poppy - That's all you got both times? Wow! I thought Queens got hammered back in that first one. Guess they just took it easy because kids were off school back then. This time around they wanted to make sure the schools stayed open. Bunch of fascists...
I thought I already commented here? Damn! I am losing it or something.
Anyway, I will sweep - with an actual broom - the snow off our porches and steps. That's about it. The husband does any shoveling. Or the crackhead down the street will do it for $5.
Sybil - I wish we had a crackhead living down the street. Wait, what?
Shoveling snow is done in segments for me. Even after my back hurts, I can look out the window and see a clean driveway.
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