Lingering Snow

The snow fell almost 20 days ago - it’s been on the ground ever since. This is unusual for me. I grew up in southeast Tennessee where we might have gotten 3 inches of snow all winter, spread out over the course of 3 months. I remember school being closed because it snowed up on the mountain, which was in my school district, but not down in the valley. The buses couldn’t get up and down the W road, so we didn’t have to go to school.

Seeing the snow everyday on my drive to and from work is a whole new experience. I’m quite enjoying it. I like seeing the ground all in white rather than depressing brown and sickly green. I like watching the sun, moon, and stars reflect off of the snow, casting other-worldly light all around. When I look across the rolling fields to the stark, black treeline, it’s a beautiful reminder that things live on, even under the most dire of circumstances. I’ve often needed hope like that and I’m grateful for the visual reminder this winter.

The lingering snow is beautiful, but it’s not exactly practical and has its drawbacks. Because the sun has been coming out for the past few days, some of the snow will melt, but then refreeze overnight causing sheets of ice to form. The evaporation is also causing the snow to dry out so, in some places, it’s like a pile of sharp rocks rather than the fluffy makings of a snowman. Snow that lingers also gets dirty, piled high on the side of the road. This is something that my husband warned me about, having grown up in colder places than me. So, while the snow has looked beautiful, it’s often proven treacherous.

This contrast got me thinking about some of the paradoxes in my own life. It got me thinking how little we can control about the circumstances of our own lives and how that impacts just about everything we experience. We cannot control our families of origin, when we’re born, how we’re born, what the world will be like, or where we’re born. We cannot control much of our financial situation until, at least, our teen years and we’ve yet to learn to control the weather. Some say, “when it rains, it pours,” but it also snows. Life gets difficult and terrible, tragic things happen to us all.

Even if we’re born to the kindest parents, on the nicest street, at the perfect time in history, and have the most idyllic childhood ever imagined, suffering is coming for us all. There’s just no way around it. The world is broken, people are selfish, the system rewards greed, and the earth herself groans under the weight of our insubordination. If I really wanted to bring it home, I’d tell you that you yourself are broken, selfish, greedy, and insubordinate. Don’t get offended, I am too. My point is that you cannot control your circumstances, but even under the best of situations, you’re going to suffer. There’s no other way of it in this world.

Now, that’s not to say that there’s no hope. That’s not to say that it’s all meaningless. It’s just to state the truth: pain is the norm, though it’s not supposed to be this way. 

I’ve been thinking of the pain and suffering in my life and yours as like the snow that fell a few weeks ago. We didn’t contrive it, we couldn’t control it, and we certainly had no power over it. The snow came and fell and we were helpless to do anything but watch and maybe salt the roads a little bit. I don’t know about you, but difficult circumstances, pain and suffering in my life, are a lot like that. Sometimes, we can see it coming and prepare a little bit, but that doesn’t make too much of a difference. The car blows up, the diagnosis is dire, the kid won’t stop screaming, and on and on. If you stop to think about it, you can really work yourself up into a tizzy: you’re much more powerless than you realize.

If we can’t anymore prepare for the pain and suffering in our lives than we can for the weather, what can we control? Glad you asked.

While I couldn’t control the snow falling a few weeks ago, what came after was totally up to me. I’m lucky to have a wonderful husband who has lots of experience cleaning up after winter storms (remember, childhood in New England). As soon as the snow was done, he cleaned off our driveway and cars. This meant that we’ve had no sheets of ice to contend with as we have gone about our business of work and school in the past few weeks. I’ve checked my cars every morning for any frost or newly formed ice so that I can clean them before I go to work. Because of the intense cold, we’ve taken measures to make sure that our house stays warm without using too much energy. We’ve dressed and changed our activities accordingly. We cannot control the weather, but we can control how we respond to it.

In my life, I’ve faced many challenges and I expect that I’ll face a few more before my time is through. I was recently reading a book where the author reminded us that there is no pain “quota”. As in, you don’t suddenly reach your max-out-of-pocket with pain and suffering. It’s not like, just because things have been difficult for me, that it’s smooth sailing from here on out. My worst days could be ahead. I cannot control this, but I can control how I respond.

I have the opportunity to clear out the snow and the ice left on the driveway of my life as soon as it’s done falling or I can let it sit there awhile. The longer it sits, the tougher it gets to deal with- just like the layers of ice covering the ground and the untouched parts of the road right now. If I don’t address the trauma I’ve experienced and I just let it sit there in my heart, mind, soul, and body, it’s going to be one heck of a mess to deal with later. By avoiding the pain of my life, I’m not doing myself any favors. In fact, I’m just making it more likely that I’ll slip on a sheet of black ice and really wreck a relationship or opportunity. It might look or feel nice to just ignore the difficult circumstances of my life, but it isn’t actually nice. It’s painful and disgusting, like so much crunchy snow pretending like you can still build a snowman out of it. 

In all reality, after the first little bit, snow isn’t good for much but looking at when the sun sets and ensuring that the ground stays saturated for the spring planting. And this is where the metaphor breaks down. Lingering snow does have some positive side effects, if you’ve responded to it properly. Lingering pain, suffering, and trauma? Not so much.

This has had a profound impact on me personally as I think about what I want this year to be about. I spent the past year just reeling, triaging, and trying to find a solid place to stand. Now that all that’s over, what am I going to do? Am I going to let the pain and abuse of others set in and create black ice traps all over the road of my life? Or am I going to get my shovel and start digging out? I sincerely don’t wish to be an ugly, grey pile of snow on the side of a Massachusetts highway. I’d like to clear out what’s unhelpful and keep what’s good. My experience has taught me something and made me who I am today, so maybe it’s not so far removed from snow that lingers over a fallow winter hayfield as the sunsets beyond the treeline in the evening. There is beauty to behold in the wake of tragedy, but we have to look for it. If we’re too busy trying to dodge the black ice patches left by our own failure to respond properly, we’ll miss the glory entirely. 

I’ve got to clear the road.