Transitioning

These last few weeks, I’ve felt a bit like the tiny crocuses outside the living room window –  alternately basking in the warm spring sunshine and huddling against the stubborn winter cold. My first peek out the window in the morning now is as likely to reveal a giant flock of robins hopping around the yard like an army of wind-up toys as it is a fresh coating of snow.

During these transitional days, I am often as indecisive as the seasons, still enjoying winter’s last thrills, even as I look forward to and prepare for spring – whenever it might arrive.

On those warm-sun days, if I have the time, I weigh the options – an outing with the dog or one more trip to the ski hill for fast turns down quiet groomers?

When the day warrants time only for a quick outing, I’ve traded in forays through the forest by cross-country ski for slow runs on backroad routes I haven’t traveled much since November. I try to identify the birdsong floating through a landscape that was recently winter-quiet and to remember where I usually spot the first wildflowers – often escaped from some long-ago garden.

On longer treks, when the sun beckons the dog and I to climb higher on still-snowy trails, I can’t help but think ahead to summer adventures. Which tall peaks, now still blanketed in snow, will we hike during the green months?

The kids have had their bikes out the last few weeks, as the afternoons stretch longer between school ending and the sun setting. They ride over mud and snow, skid out on the ice, remember the exhilaration of flying downhill on something other than skis – and think about summer rides to come.

The ski gear is still out, in case we are inspired for one more day on the slopes. The ski boots by the big radiator near the front door join a jumble of muck boots and sneakers, flipflops and soccer cleats – any of them potentially required on any given day now.

We’ve lugged the sleds and snowshoes back into the garage, but haven’t yet hauled them upstairs to their warm-weather storage, lest there’s one more good snowstorm that merits their use before spring really settles in. Experience tells us that snowstorm could come as late as Memorial Day – or not again until next fall.

Some days I am impatient for the seasons to get on with their shuffle, for sunshine to prevail over lingering flurries. On other days, I remind myself any snowflakes falling now won’t last long in the strengthening light and lengthening days.

This, the dog knows – or, more likely, she just doesn’t care. She takes pleasure in whatever she finds, running gleefully along dirty roads, traipsing through puddles and scampering hopelessly after the chittering red squirrels. She stares intently through the windows at the newly arrived birds hopping around the yard. She laps happily in the recently-thawed stream near our driveway, trots mindlessly through the mud, and then – as if it’s the best thing in the world – rolls gleefully in any big-enough patch of snow she can find.

Perhaps she remembers that snow will soon disappear. Spring is coming. Next week, maybe, or the week after that. Whenever it gets here, we’ll be ready.

Original content by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul, posted to her blog, Writings From a Full Life. This essay also appears as Meghan's Close to Home column in the April 13, 2018 issue of the Littleton Record.

Home Hill

There is a small kicker built carefully into the short hill by the driveway, and ski tracks mark the snow throughout the yard. Spending all their Saturdays and Sundays and vacation days from late November through mid-April in their ski boots is, apparently, not enough for my kids. So, they have built a mini ski-and-sled park at home.

Many days, some combination of my children is outside from moments after we return home from school until I haul them in for dinner. Sometimes they gulp their food down and run back out to the cold darkness for a few more minutes of snow play before bedtime. One evening last week I gave up trying to get the kids inside and just ate dinner by myself.

I like to think that my children are not overscheduled, but the truth is that in the winter, our family is busy. Mainly that is due to our skiing addiction and the obligations that come with that. But as the kids grow older, it seems there is more busy-ness introduced each season.

Two of them now play instruments, which they are meant to practice on a regular basis. One plays basketball, which means two nights of practice or games each week during the winter. Then there are the afterschool activities, academic and otherwise, which push the calendar toward overflowing.

None of the kids is involved in all of the activities on that calendar, but the logistics of who is supposed to be where, and when they’re supposed to be there, is sometimes overwhelming.

Impromptu playtime, wherever we find it – before school, after dinner, for nearly the entire bonus time of the rare weather-induced delayed start to school – is crucial to keeping all of us balanced. On days with no afterschool activities on the docket, no basketball practice, and no homework, out the kids go, come cold or blowing snow, afternoon sunshine or post-dusk darkness.

They grab sleds or skis. Brooms, shovels, and rakes are hauled off the porch and out of the garage for the purpose of “grooming” the ski runs and sledding hill. The puppy bounces enthusiastically after her kids, excited by their excitement.

On the little hill that runs from the curve of the driveway into the stubbly field, the kids make laps. They schuss down on their skis, hitting the little kicker, competing in impromptu races, or simply seeking a few seconds of speed and cold wind in their faces.

They get running starts to build momentum before jumping, head-first and belly-down, onto sleds. They link arms to slide downhill together, side by side. They develop elaborate, clumsily acrobatic tricks that involve multiple people and someone transferring from one moving sled to another on their way down the hill.

Sometimes, during these snow-sliding escapades, someone lands on a face or bonks a knee into an ice chunk or gets an arm twisted the wrong way. Then, there are tears as the wounded party hobbles inside. But they always go back out, later that night or at the next obligation-free opportunity, taking to the home hill with the abandon of kids set free. 

Original content by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul, posted to her blog, Writings From a Full Life. This essay also appears as Meghan's Close to Home column in the Feb. 10, 2017 issue of the Littleton Record.