Snow

I was heading over to my mom's to help her make the meatballs for the annual Christmas spaghetti (she's Italian), when I realized that as long as I had my camera in my bag, I might as well take a few pictures of the snow.

I don't have much to say about it. I just know that for those who don't get this kind of snow it's a bit of a marvel, so I thought I'd share. It's hard to put it in perspective though. Half the world (my friend in Vietnam heard of it), know of the snow collapsing the Metro Dome and as many of the spectacle of the Vikings football players sliding on the ice of Gopher Stadium. All the world knows that Minnesota has had snow.

It's funny to be the focus of attention in this way. Like the photos of the snow, it's the kind of thing where you need to have your visuals stand in contrast. Here's the big fish. Here's the guy's hand holding the big fish. You can't tell a big fish is a big fish unless you take one of those photos like in the movies, where they show the guy who was kidnapped with the current day's date on the newspaper. Okay, that wasn't a photo of him taken last June.

So many things are like that -- comparison providing the defining features.

As Christmas draws near, I imagine what the world would be like without comparison. Would it be less known? More clear? Less harsh. More gentle?

Snow...and the trees drop their arms

Had a peculiar day yesterday with the nice fall giving way to the first big snow, one so heavy that it downed power lines and we were without electricity for most of the day. It’s amazing how one such day shows you how addicted you are to the usual. I kept turning on lights, putting my coffee in the microwave, even bagels in the toaster. I had Henry all day and he had to have asked at least a dozen times for me to turn on the TV.

So it was a day of full engagement. I knew the day with Henry was coming…just not the shape of it. We played dinosaurs and cleaned out some cabinets – the ones under the china closet. They had enough interesting stuff in them that he enjoyed that for a while. I’d forgotten what was in there and little of it was precious. I let him un-box a Japanese tea set with a bunch of little cups, and play with those little appetizer/butter knives that come in a boxed set with Christmas trees for handles (all the while wondering where these things came from and what to do with them). I did a few reduction things like take the four crystal glasses that were still good out of a big box and throw away the box and the chipped glasses, sniffed sachet that had been in there forever and threw it away, and I found candles for the latter part of the day.

Donny was out shoveling and plowing and helping neighbors who had no heat. I envy him his usefulness sometimes. He’s such a “can do” guy.

We were in the middle of making chicken and dumplings with the cabin’s lantern sitting on the stove when the power came back on.

Around me today – outside the cabin – there are bangs and thumps, thwacks and great whooshes, as the heavy snow drops and branches shift. It comes down on the cabin’s roof like the foot steps of bears, and snow showers pass by the windows. The clumps that hit the ground make plopping noises, and holes in the surrounding snow.

Power lines and tree limbs come down with nothing more than the weight of little crystals of snow all piled on at one time.

I feel solidarity with my trees as they go through this enforced dropping of their arms and the release of weight that is too heavy a burden for them to carry.

Cabin Fever

Out in the yard, the snow is gone. Not even a trace of it is left. Henry’s plastic playhouse is propped up. Can’t tell what Donny stuck beneath it – a board of some kind I suppose. Only days ago it needed to be angled for all the snow to melt and run off. It’s green, red, and blue sides, tilted and lopsided now, fill the yard with a rakish air.

Donny’s already had the conversation with me about changing things too. He gets ambitious at this time of year. He wants to move the back yard fence deeper into the woods. I say, “It sounds like a lot of work,” and hope he doesn’t do it. But he can if he wants. There’s a lot more woods than yard.

I might get ambitious toward the end of May. Memorial Day. That’s when you plant. That’s what the old-timers like my dad always said.

The rivers are rising and the first shoots of the perennials are coming up through the leafs and birdseed.

At the convenience store, the Arab gentleman told me the weather would last. I said, “No. We’ll have another snow storm.”

“Is it predicted?” he asked.

“Uh…no. We just will.”

The only other person I’ve said it to is my mother. I don’t want her to get too despondent when it comes. She hasn’t lived here her whole life. It seems to make a difference…as if…by only spending 50 years in Minnesota, you somehow miss it that there’s always a major snow storm in March, usually just after you’ve put your boots away.

Since I have the cabin out back, it gives a whole new meaning to cabin fever. I was out there a week ago and swept her out and washed the floor and the rug, wiped down the desk and the table. It’s one of the more amazing feats of spring that I can go out and find her unchanged…right down to the crumbs on the couch.

You don’t ever get that feeling entering a room in a house. As if the room just sat there and waited for you to return, and was undisturbed during the wait. I’d left the last newspaper article I’d brought with me on the desk. I should have checked the date. It was an announcement for an Anne Lamott, Trish Hampl combo…both of them speaking on the luminous. I never use that word, but I could imagine it as I opened up the cabin that first day, and as I await the snowstorm with a new, but still short pile of books (three), and the Fahrenheat.

Time and Risk

I took 21 pictures of Christmas -- 2 of the family as a unit (we never get these, or at least in the last one Henry was still crawling), 19 of Henry with his toys, and I used the remaining three this morning to begin a photographic binge.

I want to capture the fields of Rosemount, those I pass on my way to work. I may become a photographer of snow. There's something about the way the snow, then rain, then snow came down over the holiday that has made some real snow sculptures out there in the fields. Don't even need a tree nearby to get an interesting picture. We'll see how often I get to leave early enough or come home late enough to make a real stab at it.

This morning there was a car behind me at the spot where I wanted to get the horses. There are four who live on a quaintly picturesque farm and they feel like buddies since I see them nearly every morning. Today there was one real near the street wearing a green blanket, but I didn't dare pull to the side of the road.

The thing about being artistic is you've got to have time and you've got to take risks. If I get time, take risks, and capture anything that isn't too mundane, I'll post it. At least it's one way to enjoy the snow!

By the way, Christmas was lovely...full of beautiful people -- a real pageant of every age and color, and brimming with emotion and care, especially for those joining us and those leaving us--poignant and bittersweet and joyous...all at the same time.

Hope yours was all you desired it to be.