New Year's Snow

             Snow fell on New Year's Day. Two days later it was falling incessantly, piling up inch by inch, then foot by foot. Now snow snuggles up to the house almost to the level of the windowsills.

 Snow has  snuffed out all sound except the occasional muffled thunder of tree limbs loosening their load. Wind blows soft snow off trees in beautiful white swirls. Snow has whitened the entire world outside the house with its clean, spotless beauty.

            When I woke up this morning no light resulted from the flick of the light switch. I groped my way downstairs (thinking of my blind friend), found a flashlight, and lit some candles. No electricity. No water. No phone service. No internet, so no email, and my cell phone never did work in the house. No communication. My four-wheel-drive car with studded snow tires sits useless in the carport, stymied by the depth of the snow. I have water in my bathtub and enough water in snow to last for months. I have plenty of firewood and a good wood stove. I have an emergency food supply.

            I also have skis, and, as I had obligations to cancel, I decided to ski down the hill to the paved road and from there to a neighbor's where there might be cell reception.

            First I stopped to see how my only neighbor on this gravel road was doing. She was bailing. She had called friends in the valley who told her she could stay with them. They would walk up the hill to fetch her and bring a sled for her cats in a cage.

            I wished her luck and kept on going. As I was skiing down the hill, I saw her friends walking up, knee-deep in snow and dragging a sled behind them. At the bottom of the road I saw a heavy, more-than-four-wheel-drive, army-type vehicle with a driver, waiting for Sylvia and her rescuers. The road had not been plowed, and the man told me that only a vehicle like his could get up it. He advised me to get out of there and told me he would take me down the mountain right then, but I declined his offer, and his advice, and skied on up the road to Dave and Lauri’s. On my way I met other neighbors, walking with their dogs. When I explained my mission, Blair said he would go to his house to get his phone, which was the only one with reception, and meet me at Dave's.

            Dave and Lauri were standing outdoors in the sunshine with another neighborhood couple. Blair arrived with his phone, and I made my calls. We all had a nice little fun time talking about how deep the snow was and how we hadn't seen snow like this for eleven years, laughing about all the hardships, and exchanging stories about how we were coping. Everyone is more or less in the same position as I – actually less, since their road is less steep and not as long, and since they’re all super-practical, capable men and wives lucky enough to have super-practical husbands with big vehicles and back-up electrical systems and money and brains and capability. I am just an impractical woman living alone way up on a mountain without enough brains to keep my back-up system charged or to drive my car to the bottom of the hill before the snow came. I used to do it. At the least sign of snow I used to leap into my car and take it to the paved road. I think the reason I didn’t do it this time was that life in my new house is so much easier than life in the old one it didn’t occur to me I could be revisited by the hardships of yesteryear. 

            When I got home, the electricity had returned. 

Shortly thereafter phone service was restored, too. Friends were calling to see if I was all right, if there was anything they could do for me. I'm in communication again. The house is warm. Because my plans for the week have been avalanched, I find myself in the sort of vacation mode I always imagine the long Christmas vacation will be but never is – endless days of leisure with no obligations to be anywhere, just time to do with as I like. I have been sewing and reading and playing the guitar. The world outside is unimaginably beautiful. The deeper the snow, the more beautiful it becomes. Its purity and cleanliness seem to auger the same for the human world. Hope shines.