Intimations of Spring

It has been a strange, anticlimactic winter along the New Hampshire seacoast.  It is mid February and I rode to the beach on my bicycle for the second time this week. 

Last winter the streets were ice and snow covered and bicycling was out of the question.  The oak tree on my front lawn has tiny buds, in February.  Mr. Tugboat, the Lab, can hardly tear himself away from the loamy smells along the sidewalks running along Route 27, and walks are a battle, with me dragging him away from one delectable aroma to the next. Last February, he was all business, trotting down the snow packed sidewalks and streets dutifully, simply aiming  to get the walk over with and home to the full food bowl he knows awaits him at the conclusion of his morning constitutional.


I'm a little ashamed not to feel more rueful about the abortive winter. I moved up here to New Hampshire, in part, hoping for real winters and last year's winter lived up to billing. It snowed every day and did not melt until April, and I could go cross country skiing in the mornings before work, along the abandoned railroad bed behind Depot Square, all the way to North Hampton. 

Last year's winter was my wife's fault. This year's non winter is my fault. Last year, it was warm through the end of December and my wife started whining that she missed snow,  and boom, God answered in January and buried us in white, up to the eves of our front porch.  Our neighbors came by, one by one,  to tell her to keep her mouth shut in the future.  This year, the winter snows would hinge on my decision whether or not to buy a snow blower. 

I  resisted buying a snow blower--ours is the only house on our block without one and my neighbors would shake their heads at the folly of this Southern boy who refused to acknowledge he lived in northern New England now,  and required certain equipment for that life. 

Last winter, my retired neighbor, from down the street arrived to snow blow my driveway at 6 AM and he would say things like, "This is not mint Julep country, you know."  Or, "You can drink your sweet tea in the summer, but up here, in the winter, you need a snow blower."  

Ultimately, I found myself the neighborhood charity case, as neighbors took turns on my driveway. 

One of them assigned his father-in-law to take me around looking for just the right snow blower. He swore by Hondas, which would last thirty years, but I noted I am not likely to last another 30 years.

But it wasn't just my immediate neighbors:  there was my good friend who would email me every new storm, to be sure I was not thinking of shoveling.  We are members of the Democratic Club and she was sure the Democrats would lose one sure vote if I died shoveling snow.  She would allude to February obituaries, which carried the line, "Died shoveling snow."  She implied I was simply in denial about my age.  You may think you look younger than you are; you may think using a snow blower is like wearing a hearing aide, but the fact is, you need one.  "Well, you lived through another snow," she'd say, whenever she saw me. "You know, there's no prize for shoveling out your driveway. It doesn't make you look more virile, just makes you look a little clueless."  Or words to that effect.

Actually, it was sort of counter productive, her needling me. These New Englanders don't gush with the Southern expressions of false love. In the South,  women would say stuff like, "Oh, I just love seeing you come through the door!" And these were married women who were not flirting. It's just the way people talk down there.

Up here in New England, they do not gush.  They are economical and reserved in their expressions of affection.  Smiles are less toothy, more apt to be playing around the corners of the mouth.  A New Hampshire Yankee woman is more likely to hold you with a straight look in the eye and after a few beats of silence, she'll say, "I thought about you trying to drive to work through the snow this morning. You know, they make all wheel drive for northern latitudes like this." ( I drive a car with only front wheel drive.)

That's about as flirtatious as Yankee women get.  Wait, she said she was thinking about me this morning! She cares about me! Subtle, but effective.

Unless we get some bitter March snows, winter is over.  Hemingway captured the virtues of a snowy winter in A Farewell to Arms. Once it started to snow in earnest in Northern Italy, the fighting was over for the winter.  Armies, trucks, everything was frozen in place and no major offensive could be launched, so the armies just hunkered down in place and men could enjoy simply watching the sun play on the snow and the bare trees and light up the inside of rooms with that special brightness of a winter day reflecting off snow and through the windows illuminating the insides of buildings in a way you never see in summer, when light is filtered through leafy trees. 

Still, much as I hate to admit it, I can't help for being grateful for this odd winter.

 It feels like an act of divine mercy, somehow.