So, we’ve had snow on the ground since the day after Thanksgiving and we are coming off of a particularly defeating cycle of just enough snow each day that everything has to be shoveled once again. In our world, that doesn’t just mean the 120-foot-long driveway or the 500 square feet of decks. Nope, it also includes a pathway around the house, one out to the woodshed, one out to the tractor shed and one out to the compost pile. We also have to pull the snow off the solar panels and then clear the decks a second time of the dense, hard-packed snow that falls off the panels. Finally, we have to clear off the three-vehicle parking area and two cars. (Yep, no garage yet but we are on a renovation hiatus. Don’t talk to me about a garage.)
One would think for someone who really genuinely hates winter that this would put me over the edge, but so far it hasn’t. I’ve many guesses why but I think it comes down to two key reasons: it’s before Christmas and I like snow for Christmas. It’s also early days yet. Snow in February is much more defeating than snow in December.
In that vein, I wake up once again with a little snow to shovel. Thankfully this time it’s been cold so the snow is light and fluffy and the storm finally ran out of snow so there isn’t much there. What took two people hours yesterday should take one person only an hour today.
In a holiday season that has felt entirely unexpected to me, my sudden tolerance for snow just goes on the list. Candidly? Since November, it’s been a roller coaster. First, rescuing and then adopting out the two stray kittens wasn’t on my radar screen. Neither was a quick trip to Maine for a client. Both things were highly enjoyable so I’m not complaining, but just busier than I expected. Then, of course, there has been the big thing this holiday season: our little girl with untreatable cancer. Up until the week of Thanksgiving and thanks to steroids, she was like her old self – owning her outdoors, eating and drinking like a champ and pushing her brothers around. Then, she had a few rough days. She ultimately bounced back a little but is now slipping once again. As a kitty parent, it’s hard to watch her decline and I think constantly about her quality of life and when to make the decision to let her go. In her best interests, we are delaying a trip to New Orleans for the holidays. When we do eventually go, it breaks my heart to think it will be because we are a family of four fur babies, not five.
Today, I have just three working days left in the year. As I make the right-hand corner into the holidays, I find myself seeking a quiet I can’t fully achieve and just enough time and space to give my soul the tiniest bit of a rest. My goal is that the holidays will be just that for me and hopefully for us. (My hubby is also off but not until Christmas Eve.) This year, it seems like it’s vitally important to find a holiday cheer that involves loss and the celebration of a sweet, gentle and sassy life; joy in the comforts of a home we work so hard to build; humor in the moments when we can laugh at the antics of the other four sweet kitties – all boys (😊); and togetherness in our final days as a family of seven.
That’s why, I think, the snow doesn’t bother me so much. Yes, it’s work but it also forces us to stay home and together. It’s like Mother Nature is giving us permission to hunker down inside and enjoy our little family. I’m okay with that. In fact, I find that I absolutely need that.
I started this holiday season with big plans. After throwing what I have to admit was probably my best Thanksgiving dinner and decorating my house to its high water mark, I had planned on a number of fun things. Since we both work from home, I was planning on an “office Christmas party” for family and friends one Saturday in December. I was also hoping to do dinner out with friends one night and a family potluck dinner. We had plans for New Orleans and enjoying just a little break from winter while also enjoying family and friends. This holiday season was destined to be a series of celebrations timed to announce our arrival back into the land of the living after so much professional work and home improvement.
Instead, it became a subdued holiday. The reality of Meadow’s diagnosis, which I had truly sought to believe was a mistake, has now hit home. I spend my days when I’m not working focused on making sure she has highly palatable food, lots of fresh water and comfy spots to be. Our evenings lately have been crash landings from busy professional schedules. In between, we are clearing snow. In a sense, it sounds kind of miserable. And yet, there are moments of such profound quiet love in the care we are giving to each other and to her. When the little boys cuddle on the couch together and fall asleep or white-furred Twister wants to go out in the snow or Doppers and Dash are crying at the catio door, their sheer hedonistic lifestyle brings a smile to my face. When our sweet Meadow goes to bed with us at night and lays down in her comfy spot and just purrs and purrs, I consciously remind myself to cache those memories for future use. When we meet at the kitchen island for a drink, dinner and conversation at night – with Meadow right beside us on “her” chair – there is a quiet sense of normality that soothes my slightly aching heart.
Someday, I’ll reflect back on 2025 and the holiday season. I know it will be colored with the eventual loss of Meadow, but I’ll remember how she loved to lay under the Christmas tree on the tree skirt and I’ll have the pictures of each and every cat in that same spot under the tree. I’ll think about those sweet purrs and the play of her not-so-beloved brothers. I’ll think about a year that was hard in ways I didn’t expect but that was transformative as well. I hope I can celebrate upon reflection that it was truly the end of renovations. I have to say that I genuinely won’t be sad to see 2025 go, although it breaks my heart to think we will say goodbye to a tough year at around the same time we will likely say goodbye to Meadow. Somehow, the two have become conflated and I can’t think of one without the other. But in the end, 2025 will be the year we had and within it there are some incredibly beautiful memories.
As the snow turns into flurries today and the storm warning expires in about an hour, I will go out today and clear that final inch of snow off of everything from last night. I’ll dust off my car, head to complete my errands today and come back home to my sweet little family. I’ll check on Meadow, try to coax her with food and take time for a few extra head scratches. And I will try to keep approaching this winter season and the snow fall with the same gentleness I’m trying to bring to this little family in need. This year, it’s about quiet moments, small celebrations, gentle hearts and loving hands.
Let it snow and let there be peace on earth.
The Yuppie Homesteader 