I’m forcing myself out of a frozen shell to engage with the rest of the world. There are times when I need a build up of ideas and energy in my head that is too easily dispelled by any form of communication. Emails and voicemails and texts are piling up. I know the end is nigh for this period of silence, that will likely be followed by a burst of productivity. Sometimes I wonder if nature controls my moods.
This week has been the most wintry week of winter. Black ice on Monday, heavy snowfall midweek, and now brittle, skin-freezing temps and wind chills again. A friend slipped and broke her leg. A man shot a school bus driver after a fender-bender on a snow and ice-coated highway. The rabbit that found a winter home near one of our window wells is puffed out to twice it size and gets stared at by giant, hairless bipeds at least twice a day. People make snide comments on Star Tribune weather articles about climate change.
I shoveled the half foot of snow off the drive yesterday and wondered how many more years I’d be able to do it. The aches of the day are knee, hip and back. I’ve always been a work horse and hate the noise and maintenance of snowblowers. I like the dead silence of winter, the barrage of constant physical sensation that forces me out of my brain and into the moment – the numbing of my face, breathing through frozen nose hairs, the bite at my thighs and fingers that mean I’ll be red and burning when I get inside and start to warm.
I’ve never been a daredevil and never really understood those who are. Why climb a mountain? Why jump out of a plane? Why deep sea dive? I’m disinterested in the spectacular physical challenges humans seek out. I’m interested in survival and the daily precipice we all live on – the never knowing when death will seek us out. When I’m out on a winter’s day, I think of how our lives are built on safety nets and backup plans and fail-safes, but in spite all of that, someone will have a heart attack shoveling, someone will fall in their shower, someone will eat a yet-to-be recalled food.
Our daily lives are full of risk. We could do everything right and still have life go south. Knowing that is adrenaline enough for me. And it requires no special gear, no great heights, no training courses. Just a desolate, muffled winter day.
The Green Study 
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