A Hate / Love Relationship

Here I am sitting alone on the most versatile piece of furniture in the house.  At one time or another it has been the site of every last one of life’s essential activities, but it is at the moment, my writing couch.  We (the couch and I) face a crackling wood stove which almost, but not quite overwarms us from about 12 feet away.  To our left is a curtainless bay window, through which I can see nothing but inky darkness.  In front of us is a steaming mug of tea resting on the coffee table.  To our right sits an overstuffed bookcase, begging for relief.  I feel fully contented.  It has been a very good day.  

I travel a lot for work and my ritual when readying to come home in the wintertime includes regular checks of the weather.  Winter storms have quite often diverted, delayed, or destroyed my trips home, and while there isn’t much I can do about it, I do like to anticipate it if I can.  My flight home looked like it would be unaffected, but I would be coming home (from the tropics) at about 11pm to subfreezing temperatures and a 100’ long drivewayful of snow and ice 2’ deep.  Ugh!  I dreaded it, but I figured that with the help of a little 4WD, I might be able to get the car off the street and at least spend a night in the bed I’d been missing, before figuring out a way to clear it in the AM.  I was feeling that old New Englandy Winter Schizophrenia:  We love the snow.  We hate the snow.  Mostly, I was hating the snow.  

Salvation came in the form of my ever-helpful and super-thoughtful neighbor, Paula, who somehow managed to get her already overworked ex-husband (a man I’ve never met) to plow me out.  By the time I got home, the driveway was clean and bare.  Had Paula’s ex been there at the time, I fear I may have kissed him.  The snow can make men do such things.   

That was a few days ago.  Early this AM, I noticed an ice dam had begun dripping water into the window in the boys’ room.  It hadn’t yet, but would soon cause damage, so I got dressed instantly and headed outside to clear the snow and ice of the front half of my roof.  

It was earlier than we normally get started in the AM, but I wanted the kids to learn to fix things the way I learned, by watching my Dad.  Plus, I’ve reached a stage of my life where conservatism is seeping into my psyche, despite my resistance.  I didn’t mention it to them, but I thought it would be a good idea to have someone with phone skills nearby while I was laddering about on an icy roof.  

My first clue that this was going to be a great day came when I was helping Brendan attach the suspenders portion of his snow pants to the bib in the front.  He looked at me trying to suppress his mischievous twinkle and said: “Dad, I don’t know why people call these snow pants.  They should call them snow-veralls!”   

We went outside and before I got the ladder out, I put their snowshoes on them and set them off into the backyard in search of anything interesting they could find.  The marveled at their ability to walk on top of the snow without poking through in a way that they hadn’t in previous years.  This year, fortified by another year’s worth of science classes, they wanted to know exactly why they weren’t poking through.  Why all snowboots weren’t made that way, and a thousand other questions I might even have been able to answer had I paid more attention in school.  

Whilst Admirals Peary and Byrd explored our little temporary taiga, I cleared the roof (without injury to either it or myself, thank you).  By the time I had put the ladder away, the first snowman was under construction.  It had been ages since I’d made a snowman, so I made a very sincere and eager attempt to help, but was immediately and rather impolitely informed that my assistance was neither necessary, nor welcome.  They made a fine snowman all by themselves.  Then a snow blob, whose resemblance to “Jabba the Hut” was uncanny and remarkably undiminished by two days of melting later in the week.  

While snowman construction was underway, I set about the task of clearing those bits of the driveway the plow was unable to reach.  Having finished the snowmen, they decided a snowball fight was in order.  For reasons I don’t understand, snowball fights are the last acceptable form of fighting allowed by parents.  Somehow, we parents still see it as good clean fun, while brothers see it as a way to exact revenge for the preceding year’s infractions large and small.  In the movies, snowballs are soft and make a sort of “poof” sound when they hit the well padded abdomen of their target.  In real life, boys look for small rocks, sticks and bits of ice to embed in their snowballs, not necessarily to kill their opponent, at least to mark him.  And trust me on this one Moms:  I don’t care where they land; every snowball is aimed for the bridge of the nose.  Every single one.  Ask any guy.     

As they began to pile the snowballs, I saw where this was leading (there must be more “brother” in me than “parent”) and decided to shift their focus a little.  There was a glacier and a half’s worth of snow piled up on the side of the driveway by Paula’s ex’s truck’s plow –perfect for carving a snowfort out of, so I challenged them to a fight and they happily obliged.  They did most of the design and I did most of the work and before long, we had us a decent fort.  There were sheets of ice on the front for armor, a (not so) secret hiding spot; and of course, an open back wall for escape should the enemy (me) advance past the wall.  For the next hour or so, snowballs and laughter filled the air with only a modicum of crying.  

The day only ½ over, we went in for lunch and hot chocolate.  I sent their clothes for a round through the dryer, and inflated their sledding tubes.  After lunch we got dressed again, and headed off for the sledding hill.  

From the parking lot, they complained that the hill looked too small.  As we walked up it, though, Brendan began to have second thoughts about wanting to go sledding at all.  He thought maybe he’d just sled the bottom half, but when he saw his older brother Seamus walk confidently to the top, hop onto his tube, and sail smilingly past us, he changed his mind.  He was scared and hesitant, but he did it.  By the time we left a couple of hours later (because I was getting cold, not them), they were taking running starts from the top of the hill to achieve the highest possible velocity with which to launch themselves from the jump at the bottom.   At one point, I lay down in front of the jump and watched their faces as they flew over me.  I now understand the definition of the word “jubilant” in a way I couldn’t have before.  I really should start taking a camera along for times like this.  Most folks have photo albums.  I guess we’ll have a story album.  

Eventually we came home.  I made dinner.  They took warm baths, got their jams on, and ate like condemned men.  They actually went to bed early and without argument.  I’d have gone to bed early too, but I just had to write it all down before I forgot it.  Days like today, when you just have to love the snow, don’t come along often enough.