snow

I didn't think it was possible for me to get this tired of snow. I grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee, where snow was a rare and exotic treat, experienced a few times a year if we were lucky, usually with snow days and complete disruption of routine. I've always loved the landscape of fresh snow. Even as a tired and jaded grown-up, I'll go for a long walk in new snow, just to breathe in its brief and delicate loveliness.

But this year I am really, really, really tired of snow.

I learned to drive in a family with a VW bus, boats stacked on the roof, heavily loaded with camping equipment, gear galore. Bring on the stick shift, the mountain roads, the hard spring rains. But not the snow. Hey, we used chains in those days. My dad would put them on when we went to the Smokies, and he would drive us on gorgeous unplowed roads in the national parks at high elevations.

So I had never learned to drive in snow, knew nothing of potholes, black ice, any of that. And for many years I was married to a nice man who grew up in Chicago and really liked to drive, and since I could take a train to work in those years, I didn't have to drive much. However, when our marriage ended, he was naturally absolved of any responsibility to take me around in bad weather. And when I landed a great job that required car-commuting, it wasn't like I could turn it down, being a single mother all of a sudden.

Fast-forward five years. It's now the winter of 2007-08, with record-breaking snowfalls, and I don't have to tell you if you live here, you know all about it. It has been hard, but I am unfazed. I am tired, and cold, like all of you, but I am also triumphant. Me and my little red Saturn have made it through.

The capstone experience of my winter was this: I got a guy's car unstuck in my alley. He was a young guy with a Japanese accent, said he was from Oklahoma... anyway, for sure he was not from around here. His car was blocking the main route through the alley so I was stuck behind him. I watched him try to move it, but he didn't know how. In my own body, I could feel what to do. So I bullied him into letting me drive his car. In a matter of moments I had his car in his parking space, and he said, "Wow, how long have you lived here? How did you learn to do that?"

For just a moment, I felt like Wonder Woman.