I may be a hobbit…
January in Iowa is a bit dismal. We learn to push on with exercise, take our Vitamin D, and find the sun when we can get it. This year I was even gifted a “Happy Light” for Christmas to get simulated rays when the sun disappears for days at a time.
Our family has been pretty good over the years about stopping the hibernation cycle my body desperately craves when the sun abandons the Northern Hemisphere for its equatorial beach vacation. We take walks in knee-deep snow, make forts and snow families, slide down anything remotely slick, and ball up snow and wing it at one another whenever possible. One year, during an ice storm we even called out the neighbor kids to compete in the Olympic games, replete with events like luge, skeleton, speed skating, ice hockey, etc on the sidewalks and in the street. It was a blast. A couple of years ago we all got snow shoes and we have sleds at the ready whenever the snow falls.
This year, after having covid in November and December’s temperatures hitting record lows, we were slow to get out much. We were finding things to do indoors. It felt like wading through mud to drag myself out in the cold. And as I’ve mentioned in past posts, we have been running like crazy for activities. Post-pandemic lockdown, for us, this feels so much more overwhelming than it used to. After having taken a breath and rested from all of it – we didn’t really want to go back to all of the yeses, and really haven’t. We have been very careful and choosy about what we say yes to. However, the kids remain busier than ever wanting to find their places in the social, athletic, and academic realms.
So, in the midst of a weekend of Show Choir and basketball, me having yet another cold of some sort, and Bella broke a tooth that just bled and bled, and clearly was a painful experience for her (she ended up having surgery later). I was hesitant to say yes to a friend I adore spending time with and whose kids are great friends of our kids. She was asking us to go play in the snow and I wasn’t sure how much bandwidth we all had for that, but it sounded so tempting.
At best we could hike while the kids went sledding. At worst, we could stand and talk while the kids played. I decided to say yes. So Jeff, the kids, and I packed up our snow gear. We negotiated to go to a spot close by so we didn’t have to drive so far each way, I think that would have been the death of this particular trip, and we headed out.
It’s such a strange thing for me. I could go months without leaving the house. I can get exercise with all the equipment and streaming videos we have. I can get all of my work done within this house. I can talk to people online, on the phone (this is rare if I’m being honest), on facetime, on text… and then one day someone gets me to go outside and it’s like – Holy Shit look at the world! It’s amazing! Like I’m this ridiculous human who forgot it was there and is rediscovering it for the first time. I take big heaping gulps of fresh air and let the unfiltered sun warm my face. And I reenter society – well kind of – by that I mean, I become less of a hermit – I go to coffee shops, or even sometimes have lunch with friends. I go places with my dogs sometimes. It’s strange and ridiculous, but also amazing.
We went to a place somewhat familiar to me. I’d been swimming there before a couple of times. We hiked an enormously steep sled hill and watched the kids soar down. We hiked a path in the woods and enjoyed how still it was and how incredibly beautiful the snow looked clinging to the trees. I was like a little kid on a snow day. I was so happy to be there with my friends. We rejoined the kids and watched them race down as we hiked back to the car to hit the local coffee shop – tired and cold but fulfilled.
That Monday, there was hoarfrost on everything in the morning. It was so cold, I took photos from the windows. The ice crystals on everything made the trees and grasses look feathery and light. I could feel myself being pulled to go out but I stayed inside that morning. That didn’t last too many more days.
