Let me paint you a picture. I write this cutesy little blog post about shoveling snow with my husband and how it's oh so romantic and sweet that we can do it together. Then my husband leaves for a work trip, and in the course of the next five hours, six more inches of that white frozen crap descend on my house.
Oh, it's so pretty. That thought crossed my mind for approximately 20 seconds because literally everything around me was doused in white. There were no more bushes lining our sidewalk, just white lumps. The path my husband had shoveled through the snow so our dogs could relieve themselves no longer existed. The spaces I had cleaned off with a push broom just an hour before had two inches of fluff on them - again.
Then the panic set in. I was sore already, having spent two hours that morning shoveling the driveway with my husband to scoop and pile the previous evening's five inches of accumulation. But if I didn't move fast, I was going to be in deep trouble. So at a little before six PM, when the temperature was just above zero degrees and the snow was still coming down hard and fast, I went out to shovel out the section of our driveway across from the garage. That section is wide and square, and it's definitely the most time-consuming area to clear. In an hour, I'd done the job with minimal huffing or puffing. But now the areas I had cleared first were already stacked with another inch of snow. "WHAT THE FUDGE?" I screamed at the walls of white coming from the sky. Except I, like young Ralphie in Christmas Story, did not say "fudge."
I quickly plowed through the new accumulation and left the long and narrow section of our driveway untouched. Then, nursing my sore shoulders, back and legs, I walked inside, popped a couple of Advil, and watched "Return to Downtown Abby." (Hey, a girl's gotta relax...)
The next morning, it was negative too many degrees, and my relatives had sent a series of text messages begging me to stay in for fear I might go outside and never return (you know, slip and hit my head, or freeze to death. the usual things that happen when you go outside in the cold...). The decision wasn't hard to make. From my writing room, where I was feverishly giving one final edit to the first eight chapters of my novel, I could see massive gusts of snow-bearing wind assaulting my poor neighbors as they walked to put something in their mailbox. I didn't want to go shovel snow in that mess. And I did not, under any circumstances, wish to see how much more snow had accumulated since my last time shoveling.
Finally, the mail came and I was forced to greet reality. I shoved my warm feet into my husband's tall boots, opened the garage door, and stepped into the snow.
There were about two more inches where I had shoveled the night before, and those were easy to walk through. But when I hit the long and narrow portion of the driveway, it was a different story. There were easily ten inches of deep snow piled up across the eight-foot expanse. I plodded through them, snow dropping into my husband's too-big (for me) boots and forming a thick layer of packed frozen cold beneath my heel. I knew now that the next day would be painful.
This morning, I ate my steaming oatmeal and drank a cup of coffee, put on two pairs of thick socks, under armor, a sweatshirt, yoga pants, and the snow pants my mother-in-law gave me last week (you are a lifesaver!), and walked downstairs. There, I put on a knit cap, my full-length down jacket, and a pair of thick gloves. Then I went out to face the snow.
First, I took care of the easy parts, clearing the areas with three or fewer inches of accumulation. The front walk was full of dog droppings because the dogs refused to walk into the snow that had drifted higher than their heads. The back porch was covered in over a foot of the white stuff, so I scooped out a small egress route and trudged slowly back to the driveway through the snow in the backyard, which went up past my knees. Quickly, I scooped out the square section of the driveway, and looked down at my narrow section with terror in my eyes.
I had to do something, because I knew my husband's van would not be able to drive through the ten or so inches of snow. I tried the heavy plow-like shovel first, but it would only push in a few inches before stopping. I dejectedly brought the heavy shovel back to the garage and retrieved my lighter aluminum one, which I used to clear a single, eight-inch-wide line almost to to the end of the driveway. There I started my real work. I scooped out about a six-by-eight foot space that stopped just five feet before the end of the driveway. My neighbors saw me struggling and said something as they got into their minivan, but I couldn't hear them over the headphones I'd stuffed in my earlobes. After they left, I set to work again. And then I had a big realization: I could not feel my toes.
When I got inside, I looked in the mirror. The bottom of my hair was frozen. My cheeks were so red they looked purple, and they were also burning uncomfortably. I looked at the weather app on my phone: -11 degrees. Well, that explained a lot.
I retreated upstairs and turned on the small heater underneath my writing desk, where I attempted to bring life back to my limbs. Eventually, I saw the neighbors' gold minivan come back down the street. They drove past their driveway, examined mine, then reversed and pulled into their garage.
Within ten minutes, two of my neighbors, in full snow gear, were shoveling the bottom of my driveway. I felt terribly embarrassed, and simultaneously more grateful than I had words to express. I actually started to feel tears in the corners of my eyes. I had to go outside and join them. And I had to say thank you.
I walked out, and told my neighbor that she certainly did not have to shovel my driveway but that I very much appreciated the assistance. In turn, she told me she was happy to put her four kids to work shoveling. I should go back in to the house whenever I wanted, she told me. They would take care of it all. School was cancelled, so the kids were inside all day, she explained, and they needed something to do.
For the next hour, I met each of my neighbors' helpful kids and said thank you approximately 20 times. The family rotated in and out as, two at a time, they helped me clear out the rest of the driveway. They were all upbeat and happy to help, and I felt like the luckiest woman in the world.
Thanks to my incredible neighbors, rather than a stretch of untouched Arctic tundra, my driveway resembles an elaborate tunnel built in anticipation of trench warfare. I am beyond grateful. I'm at a loss, though, figuring out a meaningful way to say "thank you". Hmmm...
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