O, what a difference a year can make. This time last year these snow days made me crazy, partly because there were so many of them, and partly because I was beginning a silly chapter of resisting the present moment, especially if it was one I didn’t want or expect.  It’s very tiring to spend months and months feeling outrage, or at least deep frustration, every time a disappointment comes along.  To quote my beloved Anne Lamott, “Exhaustion is usually the beginning of wisdom and change.”  So nowadays I take the snow and ice for what they are, noticing they seem to be pretty temporary, and allow myself some extra healing naps while our car sits in the garage.  This has been the most anticlimactic return-to-work-after-surgery ever.  But that’s okay, because the older I get, the more I appreciate the anti-climatic.  And the naps. Especially the anti-climatic naps.

(Charming Photograph by The Fayetteville Flyer)

And o, what a difference a decade can make.  Ten years ago right now I had a pretty gigantic belly region and was about to face The Unknown.  Flash forward to yesterday when that little Unknown and I bundled up and went into the back yard to trudge around the icy snow together. I got in trouble a few times by my winter dictator who didn’t like that I cleaned the snow pile off our patio table or that I filled a bucket of water for him without cleaning it out first. His final straw was when I attempted and failed to pull his snow pants over his snow boots so that he could go down the slide without getting his leg skin wet.  As we argued back and forth about the inappropriateness of an almost ten year old bossing his little mom around, this same mom who was trying to enjoy some physical activity in honor of making it to the three week post-surgery mark, I watched his cold face get more and more red and his eyes fill with tears.  It was the classic fight between wanting to stay a baby and wanting to be independent, and it was all the more awful with the big birthday three days away.  As he angrily tossed his snow gloves across the yard, I thought of the many years when he couldn’t function without my help, wondering if he treats Troy the same way when they’re hanging out.  I left his gloves on the ground and his body on the slide and went into the house without him.

Within an hour things were back on track thanks to forgiveness and short term memory loss, and we were up in his warm, colorful loft bedroom with me drawing letters on his back for him to guess.  Later that evening, Troy and I watched some home movies starring a very cute one year old while Huck played nearby and ignored the nostalgic comments and sighs from his sentimental parents. Somewhere in the middle of all that I received the text message announcing today’s snow day and I smiled.