by Nici Holt Cline
Our valley floor reached a little closer to the sun last week. For 48 hours, the sky dropped snow. It fell neatly like piles of folded laundry, layering higher and higher. We shoveled a foot off the driveway before bed at 9pm and the next morning there was another six inches to scoot away. And so it went for two whole days of mother nature making us feel small and introspective.
We gathered in our backyard with friends and talked about how unusual it is to have Missoula snowed in for a few days. People thought back in the day and discussed, concluding they couldn’t remember ever having two snow days in a row. The plows couldn’t keep up with the snowfall, schools cancelled, businesses closed. But still, people did push into town, work and errand running. “Well, we are Americans!” one friend joked. Another replied, “Really, this storm should have wrecked us even more.”
While modern conveniences and urgency clear the roads and allow us to function as usual, it really is lovely to witness the power and magic of a storm that outpaces shoveling. We sincerely were snowed in and even when, after a day, things were barely clear enough to drive, we mostly stayed home and enjoyed the fabulous excuse to get really creative with food in the pantry, rely on neighbors to help shovel access to our front door that is blocked by a four foot drift, ski in the streets, spend all day playing in the snow and all evening toasting at backyard bonfires. We perfected the art of snowy boot removal and mitten drying. All the neighborhood kids bounced from yard to yard making snow forts, digging tunnels, sledding and rolling snow balls. We crashed hard every night with warm, sore muscles.
There is an uplifting simplicity to collectively slowing down. People turn to each other and into themselves. Agendas vaporize and smiles abound.
I enjoy using my iPhone, driving anywhere I want to go and googling how long to cook beans in a pressure cooker?. I equally enjoy not doing these things. When our culture gets too wrapped up in immediacy and scheduling, I imagine a divine, omnipresent palm reaching out, guiding us back into ourselves and what we really want: to be a part of something bigger, to share experiences. There is wonderful comfort and relief in that which we cannot control.
A fourth generation Montanan raising a fifth, Nici Holt Cline is a mama to Margot and Ruby, wife, gardener, crafter and runner who loves to write and take photos. She writes regularly on her popular blog dig this chick. You can read “Mama Digs” every Monday exclusively at www.mamalode.com. Read more of Nici’s mamalode articles here.
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I have a warm visual of the fun times in your backyard!
xoxo!
what a welcome to your new ‘hood. great post.
Nici, Love this one!
We finally got to get out and enjoy Mother Nature’s present. What an awesome welcome your new house and your new sledding hill gave you I love it when we’re drifted in and can’t get out…it happens to us at least twice every winter. It really does help you slow down…I only wish we had neighborhood kids to come over and help us build our forts.
The snow was so wonderful. I feel the same way and wish we could be ‘snowed in’ several times a year.
look forward to more memory making with your family in our little slice of heaven!
Sounds so dreamy to be guided by Mother nature to unplug & slow down. Somehow our rainy days just don’t hold that same power! What a wonderful welcome to your new hood.
xo
Kate
We cancelled all our plans this weekend to watch the snow fall. Magic followed.
So cool to think of all of us in the mountain west blanketed under the same storm.
xo
Rachel
Oh, your sentiments are EXACTLY what I was striving for internally during the big storm. But I was in a funk. It WAS beautiful!
I especially appreciate the line: “There is wonderful comfort and relief in that which we cannot control.”
A positive spin on a line that is giving me trouble right now.
I tagged this post back for my post tomorrow. Everyone needs to read a little digs to get out of a funk.
THank you!
Oh a funk is a funk, mama. A funk during a storm seems pretty appropriate to me, actually! That which we cannot control can also be so unsettling. It’s funny that way. xo
Nici, I just love your beautiful words: It fell neatly like piles of folded laundry.
Another beautiful post.
I know it’s not New England, but this still reminded me of this song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPf4Fer8IJ4
Love your last line, which really sums it all. It’s such hard work to pause, notice, and appreciate.
Nici, I love sharing your beautiful life from across the country. I live in the midwest where we used to have lots of amazing snow when I was a child. Now we are lucky to get a few inches a couple of times a year. You are an amazing mom with a gift for words…don’t change a thing.
I love the introspective aspect of it all, but this California girl would get totally freaked out by a snow drift blocking the front door. I actually have goosebumps reading your piece! Funny, right?
This Montana girl was a little freaked out too…calling it a ‘drift’ is a little misleading as it was from a giant cornice that broke off of the roof! I was so thankful one of us wasn’t standing there when it happened. Also, I was shoveling as fast as I could because Margot had to poop. The whole thing was quite comical. I started to write about all of this and realized that would be another essay. Or two.