Day 24 - Claire

It was Saturday, the only day Claire could sleep in. She woke up while the room was still dark, but took time to "rest her eyes" and enjoy that in-between state of not sleeping but not being fully awake, of almost dreaming although having just a bit of control over the sequence of events that played out in her not quite subconscious mind.

Image by Ryan Holst, via Flickr

Once the room was light enough for her to know the sun was up, she slipped out of bed, into her slippers, and made her way to draw the drapes for her first view of the day. The sky was blue, the sun was shining, and the ground was covered in snow, several inches of it, Claire estimated. Without having to look at a thermostat or turn on a radio or TV to get a weather report, Claire knew it was cold outside. The few animals not hibernating during the winter had left some footprints on the snow. The edges of the prints were crisp, clearly defined, and without any evidence of melting that would otherwise indicate the sun's warmth.

Claire felt a shiver come over her as she imagined what the air outside was like. In defense, she grabbed her robe and headed for the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee to get warmed up before getting dressed and heading out to shovel the sidewalk and driveway. While the coffee brewed, she dropped two slides of Healthy Nut bread into the toaster and grabbed the margarine from the refrigerator and the marmalade from the cupboard. She switched on the radio which was always tuned to a Public Broadcasting station where the morning news programs were more balanced, she felt, than on the commercial stations which seemed to feature either disc jockeys yelling at the audience between pieces of music or talk shows whose moderators seemed bent on provoking their listeners into yelling at them. Her local PBS channel played classical music between news broadcasts, music to soothe away any anxieties or worries Claire brought home from work or picked up from news stories.

After savoring her toast and coffee - there was no need to rush - Claire got dressed to face the snow. In layers. She knew layers were the key to keeping her warm. She had silk long johns from her short-lived experiment with cross-country skiing, one of the activities she tried in her desperate effort to find something about winter to like, to look forward to, so the long johns were the inner layer. Next she pulled on knee-high socks and a long-sleeved t-shirt. A pair of jeans covered the socks, with an oversized pair of jogging pants on top of the jeans. Over the t-shirt, she layered a flannel shirt and an Irish fisherman sweater. Before putting on her boots, she pulled on a pair of wool socks to keep her feet warm, and then topped off her layers with a North Face ski jacket, with hood which she pulled over a scarf and matching stocking cap her mother had knitted for her as a Christmas present.

Image by yourauntjam, via Flickr

The snow wasn't a surprise. Claire had left her shovel on the porch the evening before so that she would have it handy to clear the steps and sidewalk before she had to tackle the driveway. The snow was deep, but not heavy. It wasn't wet enough to be good for making snowmen. Clearing the porch and steps just meant pushing the snow down to the next level. But clearing the sidewalk required removing the snow in layers, first the top three inches and then the rest, down to the pavement. She cleared a path the width of the shovel from the steps to the street and then shoveled the rest of the snow off the sidewalk in perpendicular swaths. She had to clear the snow from the sidewalk alongside the street as well. The county had passed a regulation at the end of the last winter requiring all public pedestrian walkways be cleared at least two-feet in width within 12 hours of the end of any snow fall, unless the snow depth was over 4 inches when the time limit was extended to 36 hours. Claire felt certain there were more than 4 inches on the ground, but there was no advantage to waiting another day to clear the path.

Once the sidewalks were clear, Claire considered whether to take on clearing the driveway, or to put it off. Once again, she thought about how much easier it would be if she gave in and bought a snow blower, but each winter she hoped would be her last in this climate. Buying a snow blower would be too close to giving up hope of a life somewhere else, somewhere warmer, somewhere exotic, somewhere she always knew she wanted to live, even without yet knowing its name.