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Volume CXXXII, Number 18 |
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Snowed in and free
LARA JACOBS
COLUMNIST
Leaning against the headrest of seat 22B on United Airlines' flight from Chicago to Denver, I imagined running in tank tops and shorts, swimming outside, and lounging in the hammock under the maple tree in our backyard. After five days of wind burn in Chicago and two months of frostbite in Maine, I was more than ready for sunny Colorado and its record high 75 degree weather.
Alas, as anyone who tuned into a national news channel last week can attest to, the weather gods were not looking favorably on me; my anticipated sunshine lasted one day before the largest blizzard in ninety years hit Colorado, shutting down the entire state. Rather than running outside or soaking up some rays, I found myself shoveling four feet of snow. Instead of lying under the maple tree I was whacking its branches to prevent them from breaking under the snow's weight. At some point, whether in line at Blockbuster waiting behind every other citizen stocking up on movies, or buying extra flashlights and batteries at Target, I honestly felt a little let down. I had looked forward to this week of warmth for months. But with each snow flake that fell, my fun spring break seemed more irretrievably buried than the lawn furniture on our patio.
To my surprise, however, that Tuesday I was almost as excited to find out that school was cancelled, as my sister actually got the day off. Watching TV, our fingers crossed and breath baited in anticipation as the list of school closings ran along the bottom of the screen, I felt the same happiness that came with any unexpected day off. The first day of the blizzard of 2003, I went sledding on our back hill in fleece pajamas exactly as I had done since first grade, though I definitely overestimated my speed and had a painful encounter with the side of our house! Later on we had snow ball fights, made snow angels, and finished the day with a round of hot chocolate and marshmallows. Hmmm, I thought, relaxing by the fire that night; while it was definitely not the "spring break" I pictured those three hours on the plane, I had to admit things were turning out pretty well.
By Friday, however, when there was no sign of the snow letting up and the snow day became a snow week, my warm fuzzy feelings, unlike the snow, began to melt. With the movies I waited in that forty-five minute line to rent-everything from "Van Wilder" to "Miss Congeniality"-ready to be rewound and a Ford Explorer sat stuck in our driveway, house arrest was losing its touch; I was ready to move on. Nevertheless, as the plane lifted up over the snowy Denver skyline, I realized that beyond sledding for the first time three years, this week taught me a greater lesson: sometimes we get so caught up in certain images or pictures of our lives that we forget there are so many versions of right, so many possible paths. For the first time, I appreciated that, just as our lives are not limited to one partner, one career, one college, or one destination, snow ball fights on spring break aren't so out of place after all.
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