There was no urgency except my body's craving for the kind of endorphins made possible by physical exertion. So I shoveled the back steps, front steps, sidewalk, and a walkway from the back door to my mother's car. The wind blew a shovelful of snow back into my face. It's a good thing my ego can handle such insults.
I took a break and headed down to Adams Street for coffee, not as easy this morning as it had been all summer, but that was the point. Navigating the snow banks was fun for a change. More people have snow blowers in this neighborhood than in my own, and I felt some envy today. But, mostly I enjoyed the clean of it, the peace of it, in spite of the machinery.
I don't think my friends at P&O or G&B were even open today. Good for them. Sadly, the tidy little neighborhood corner grocery store has been replaced by a purveyor of junk food, cigarettes, lottery tickets and beer. The possibilities for self-destruction just might be endless. Just for today, I stuck to a small sugar free gingerbread flavored coffee with light cream, and nearly finished it by the time I got home to more shoveling, and then lunch with Nana.
Later in the afternoon, the real shovel team showed up, and even cleaned off both cars. Time for another walk, just as a streak of sunlight leaked through the cloud ceiling. Welcome. This walk was longer, more roundabout and nostalgic, past the house my father's parents built in 1950. Then, past the house next door, the one they moved into in 1960. Then, back to the house my mother grew up in.
There are plenty of ways to be home.
