Life Laden . . .

The snow started falling Friday afternoon. The city had already prepared the roads. My kids had been let out of school early and we were rushing around when the first flakes fell. I was with my daughter at the time, discussing her art with her pottery teacher. We looked out the window to swirling big chunks of snow. Then my sons careened out the front door when we drove up, yelling and laughing, jumping on me (literally). Where would any of us be without that child-like exultation, I wondered. They amaze me and infect me with the strength of their enthusiasm. We ran to the store with the rest of the world, clamoring and vying for the last loaf of bread. We southern city-folk are sometimes at the mercy of forced off-the-gridness and it ain’t purty. So, bread and peanut butter are a must. There wasn’t much left!

It was a whirlwind of living and then total silence, snow hushed night in the wake of my kids’ departure to be with their dad for the weekend. But I couldn’t let it go the next morning, standing in my yard alone, taking photos. This wouldn’t do. So, I walked. And walked. The apartment isn’t too far and the photo opp was too good to pass up…

I was reminded of icestorms in Georgia with the power out and down for days, the snapping and popping of pines towering over our home and then falling all around. Food in the cooler, my sisters, mom and me sharing a bed and hoping the pines would fall selectively, kindly…

Hiking boots bought years ago, when I last saw Dery Bennett (this is my tiny tribute to him, pardon the relevant life-filled moment) who – I had just found out – is now gone to the great beyond, carried me along as I thought of the man who ran at seagulls on the beach, shouting “Be my friend!!!” with his hands up over his head. And the kindness of letters he sent in response to my own when I moved back to Georgia. My first boss, often barefoot, calling out “bird alert!” and grabbing his binoculars, summoning everyone to the window. He would stand at a dresser in his office and poke at an ancient typewriter refusing technology as long as he could while the rest of us used computers. I missed him as I trudged through the slush, remembering the first day I met him. I was all of 21 and scared, desperate for a job in New Jersey. I had to drive a ’68 Mustang in the snow to Building 18 on Sandy Hook. Thankfully, I lived at the nearby Coastie station with my then husband. Slush and boots and life. How far I’ve walked since then but what a thick rich slice of nourishment those times still are to me, a part of me as I walk along . . .

Then I round the corner after the uphill stretch and a pair of voices call out surprised at the figure in the distance and they yell, running through mush to, yes, jump again. And then they bomb their big sister’s window with snowballs…

 And the fun unfolds…

We weather life changes, all of us, with a bit of grabby grubby grace…

And I walk home richer, daughter alongside me, life-laden alive, ready for the next wave of change, the merry melt beyond the last stretch.