Growing
up in California, snow was simply something you
enjoyed while you were on a family vacation
every other year
in Lake Tahoe. Pictured here, in 1978, are a ultra-geeky me
with
snowball in hand, my father, and siblings
Getting up at 6 AM to shovel snow beats yoga any day.
I had been lamenting the fact that I haven’t used my mats in over six months (one hangs behind my office door; the others are neatly wound up in an umbrella stand at home), when nature called me to action and satisfied my yearning at 6 AM this morning.
Apart from the sore back one gets from hand-plowing and heaving a corner lot, admittedly the task of shoveling sidewalks was as satisfying as successfully bending over backwards for an Urdhva Dhanurasana (try saying that ten times fast), the yoga pose otherwise known as the Full Wheel or Full Backbend.
The first time I had to shovel snow I wasn’t so gracious about it; the second time God taught me a lesson about being more appreciative for the little that is asked of us.
In 2002, with my first wife, two-and-a-half year old and newborn in tow, we moved into a house on a corner lot in Bloomfield, New Jersey. I soon begrudged the thought and task of my obligation to clear a path on freezing, snowy mornings.
You see, I’m like the rooster on the rooftop who revels in the sun. Being born and raised in Northern California, snow is an experience from another dimension; growing up, it was simply something you enjoyed while you were on a family vacation every other year in Lake Tahoe.
The only snow I ever saw in San Jose in the twenty years that I lived there was on one freaky-Friday afternoon, circa 1976, when our fourth grade teacher opened the doors of Hester Elementary and let the kids out, so that we could experience the wonder of a few minutes of snowfall.
If you believed Ms. Luna, it was God’s way of teasing you. She was poor little Carmen’s mom, who a couple years later stumbled into our sixth grade Sunday school class one morning drunk as a whiskey-barrel. She told the whole class out loud, “Do you know what is happening when it rains? God’s peeing on you!,” adding a mouthful of spittle-riddled laughter as her exclamation point. Yuck. Needless to say, the nuns at St. Leo’s were none too pleased by this priceless nugget of wisdom. Obviously, it made a big impression on me.
Anyway, point is, before moving to New York and getting married to a Jersey girl, snow had always been a privilege, not a chore.
Yet, 26 years later, after that special day in fourth grade on February 5, 1976 (according to Wikipedia that was the last time snow fell in San Jose—“many residents around the city saw as much as three inches on car and roof tops”), in 2002, at 34, I'm suddenly being introduced to a whole-lot-of-adulthood, obligation, home ownership and a life in the burbs—and now, shoveling a hundred feet of snow off the sidewalk and into the street. Let’s just say it wasn't as fun as the biennial snowball fight I had with my cousins outside our cabin in Lake Tahoe.
The Holy Payback for all my bitching-and-moaning came after my first marital separation at the close of the winter of 2005.
I was blessed with the opportunity to stay at The Little Church for three months in the middle of Manhattan, where I was offered a free apartment right above the sacristy. In exchange, I had to serve as alter boy every Sunday, take alms from the parishioners, deflower a harem of votive candles every night, and shovel snow at six in the morning—almost an entire city sidewalk of it. It was a great lesson learned.
In fact…(here comes the gratuitous plug) I learned, or rather was reminded of many of my life’s lessons during this time and was rather fortunate to be inspired to write a memoir as a result—25 Lessons I’ve Learned, the #1 bestselling photo essay and artist biography on Amazon for three years from 2010-2012.
Thus, perhaps, quizas, my job this morning was a portent or opportunity to finally write the sequel, 25 More Lessons, which I have long yearned to write.
I’ll add, although I never thought I’d say this, there just might be one good thing about global warming.
The shoveling wasn't so bad this morning. Even though I had far more sidewalk to clear than I once did in Manhattan and Jersey, it was quite soft and almosht-slushy (the last compound word must be said with a Sean Connery accent).
It took me less than half an hour to clear the car windows, as well as shovel and salt the driveway, walkway and sidewalks. Apart from ordinances compelling me to perform my neighborly duty, I was driven by my desire to clear a safe path for my lovely wife who is expecting and carrying our little princess, Olivia.
Moreover, Chelsea is an inspiration, as she never complains about getting up before everyone else, to go to work for another long and emotionally-draining 12-hour day of life preserving and prolonging.
Considering all the wacky weather around the globe over the last decade, presuming that warming is truly upon us, there is one more benefit in addition to easier shoveling.
Now, my East Coast peeps might better understand why the natives often yearn to return back to Cali and the tepid winters and perfect springs, summers and falls of our idyllic childhoods.
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