First of Season Storm

When speaking yesterday with my dear west coast sister and her lovely eldest child, they commented on how many tabs they have open on their phones and/or laptops at any given time and I was gob smacked at how many they have on the go; tens to hundreds of tabs.

Tens to hundreds! And yet, as I am sitting on my bed typing this post and glancing at my bedside table stacked high to toppling with both fiction and non-fiction books, reams of journals, a classic, tomato red pin cushion, a small, flip-lid jar of abalone shell buttons (now two thirds used up on stitching projects I made for my family this Christmas); a jar which my mom gave me during the first lockdown in 2020 and a small organizer of embroidery floss she sent up during the second winter with three of my partially completed wool ornament projects (dainty ivory mitten, rainbow bell, and snowman banner) and this is not speaking of my triple dresser with its wool mushroom project and so on. Looking around it would appear that I, too, have many tabs open…just of a different, non-digital sort.

Never my laptop though because it, like me, crashes if there are too many demands on it at once. Sigh.

And speaking of demands on us, we on PEI are settling in to the first major winter storm of the season here. It is four thirty and the trees out two of my bedroom windows are positively laden with a gorgeous, already treacherous, depth of snow. Storms can be magical if in the right mindset or frightening and isolating when not or sometimes a mixture of both.

Government offices all closed down early today. My oh so thoughtful second youngest sister wondered on her way home from work whether she would be able to pick up food for her young family later today while our sweet youngest sister already picked up her own and an order for our parents this morning. Online grocery ordering is a certain luxury in an uncertain world. It requires a computer/phone with internet access and savvy, a credit card with space on it, relative proximity to a store which offers the service and a vehicle for pick up and not everyone has access to these. If you’ve the good fortune of having all your ducks lined up such that this is a possibility for you and space enough in your heart and on your card to help another, it might be a welcome gesture for someone you know who’s in need during this, our third winter of pandemic living. Need wears many different faces and is more prevalent than ever. This is just a thought and same too (but wonderfully different) with local, online organic vegetable delivery services.

Earlier this afternoon while the day was still bright but the snow already falling, my youngest daughter and I headed out to pick up newspapers for our rabbits’ litter boxes from my parents house down the road. We were well bundled for the wintry outing but it still was a frenzy of mad flurries and the wind had not picked up yet. While there, they asked us to fill their bird feeders with black oil sunflower seeds for the myriad winter feeder birds and the odd squirrel who frequents their heavily wooded property. Coming from a family of five kids and being a family of five with our three kids we ended up out of my parents’ “same, close ten” this pandemic Christmas. Standing in the snow and cold and peeking in to the cozy and bright artistry of their dining room filled me with sad fondness and grateful warmth enough to almost melt the falling snow around me. I was thankful we could wave at them and see their dear faces as well as fill the feeders for them. Small comforts are just that. Little gestures of distanced caring are all we can offer right now and lord knows they offer them to us in spades. The bag of newspapers always has something extra stuck in it—today a container of my dad’s homemade chicken soup. The other day a book. And these are just the little gestures of which we are endless and grateful recipients.

It is 5:14 pm now and the light is almost gone. I can still see the lovely, healing fractal forms of snowy tree branches out my back window and a street light dimmed by snow out to the south west. This storm is to be a Nor’ easter—days long and track stopping. I hear the plow on our side road and a few blowers out but by midnight it will be almost no one at all on the roads and the howl of 90-100km of wind.

On Sunday, after attempting to go for an evening drive but finding it too snowy, my son Lucas and I decided that a nighttime walk in the snow was in order. Despite being almost 10pm, he convinced his father to join us and we three got our winter gear on and headed up the hill to Cable Woods. We walked in on the town’s water station road and suddenly sliding, our winter boots found a decent squelch of red mud beneath a deceiving depth of pure white snow. Before I could say no we found ourselves in the quiet embrace of the little trail entrance. Here are my notes upon returning:

A Nighttime Walk in Cable Woods (Vignette) Jan 2nd, 2022

As we walked it was like we were in a kingdom of forgetting--forgetting everything else—what the daytime trail feels like, what we had been doing just before we headed out, concerns for the next day—all gone.

Only the moment at hand,

asking for our full attention.

In the most beautifully startling and gentle ways it reached out and touched us with its frigid nighttime air, shining an odd glow in the forest from an eerie, yellow- eyed sky, wrapping us in its canopy of snow enshrouded evergreens and stinging our faces as its icy snowflakes melted on our tongues and cheeks.

The wonder of the strangely lit, dark and snowy woods felt impossibly beautiful.

The sort of beauty that you don’t even want to proclaim as beauty for fear of breaking the spell of its enchantment.

The boys wanted to go deeper in but I felt like a frightened child as we began to enter further; silly thoughts of the coywolf our son had photographed nearby several years ago creeping into my consciousness and projecting fear into our wonderland.

I want to say I overcame the fear flood that washed over me as the snow silent woods began to creak and moan when the winds picked up but I didn’t. I bailed.

I spend so much of my days walking the terrifying terrain of trying to heal our family’s trauma that I was just too tired to push further into those eerily bright, nighttime woods.

The loss, I am sure, was ours.

My consolation to the boys was to suggest a walk along the border of the woods and the parkland up to a small evergreen grove filled with mid-sized,bushy trees where last spring our middle child Lucas found the first documented nesting pair of Cardinals. There is a sort of trail there that you can follow for a short way that took us ducking beneath a sway of snowy branches. It was the perfect way to save the feeling of Narnia that the larger woods had lent us.

Giddy, we stumbled out onto the gravel road to find the spell suddenly broken. The wind I heard beginning to creak the trees in the first woods had picked up to what we later learned was gusts of 50 km/hr and it was shockingly cold and fierce against us as we tried to decide the best sheltered street to take back home.

Hilltop was the name of the street we were on and behind us it sloped down to the southern shore and before us to our house midway down the hill. It was a hunkering walk home. Hoods pulled tight and sideways walking, we laughed as we passed by all our neighbours wisely shuttered for the night. Likely, if they were looking out just then, they laughed back at us fools out walking.

The wild walk home that night reminded me of a winter’s night twenty one years ago when my husband and I decided to spend an overnight at my uncles’ place on the northeastern cape of the Island. We were new parents—our first born almost one year old—and after supper we thought it would be a good idea to bundle our baby up in her little purple snowsuit and walk the ten minute walk in a madness of sheer snowy blackness from my uncle’s old house to my grandparents nearby farm. The roads were still passable but no wise person would be out driving so walking was safe from that perspective but we underestimated the effort it would take to carry a well bundled child whom we had hiding under a blanket so the wind wouldn’t catch her breath. I recall that when we made it, the cozy comfort of the old farm house was so welcome and my grandmother and another uncle were so glad to see us landing like apparitions in the snow that it was briefly worth it but the walk back was a fool’s errand all over again.

I’d like to say I’ve learned a thing or two in the past twenty plus years of parenting but just moment’s ago two of my kids said that they felt a call to be out in the storm… Sigh again.

As I type this final note it is now 8pm. The winds have picked up and my family has settled in after much busyness in the kitchen preparing foods for the past three hours. The boys made pizza from scratch and I made a hearty pasta salad among other things.

Just a few minutes ago my husband came into our room and started hurriedly pulling on a pair of splash pants and talking fast about someone stuck at the intersection of the side road and our little, four house street. It is blind out there now and the snow has been falling since late morning. They were heading down the hill and tried to make the turn but got stuck. By the time he was geared up the crew from the car got themselves pushed out and thankfully so. Fools out on a mad night! ( ;) )

On stormy nights we all must wish each other well. Actually, always we must...

Wishing heartfelt wellness to all those who are struggling with grief, fear and/or illness during this first of season storm and wellness to readers who are farther flung.

Thanks for reading!

Jill

ps--10:30 pm now, windgusts of 101km/h and rare thunderstorms reported during this blizzard. Interesting!

Some further winter writing for stormy perusal if you have power, time and interest:

lhttp://prattleandponder.blogspot.com/2013/11/gretel-ehlrich-and-landscape-of-home.html

and

http://prattleandponder.blogspot.com/2013/12/this-falling-nighta-call-to-love-dec.html

and

http://prattleandponder.blogspot.com/2017/01/sarah-and-sebastian-storm-day.html

addendum 11 am Sat the 8th of January

Wow-what a great dump of snow. From essentially grass after the little bit we had melted mid-week to feet of snow. I walked out early this am in the minus 15 degree wind chill to put seed out for our bird friends and the snow was level up to my knees across our front garden. Our neighbour, a linesman with the power company, got stuck on our street trying to get to work. The winds are still high but the sun just came out rushing a brilliance across the birds at the seed...Bluejay, Junco, Chickadees as Paul set out to walk to work to get the tractor going to blow the lanes out and open up the day. I am grateful for the quiet the snow brings. Take care! Jill