It occurred to me last winter that I have an unhealthy relationship with snow.
The roots of this problem are becoming more clear in old age and it will probably take me several posts to fully explore the issue.
What I have found is nuanced, but at it’s core is rooted in Global Warming. I know that we are calling it Climate Change now, and I will call it that too if it wakes up the masses.
We should be calling it armageddon, because that would also be accurate, and might wake up the ignorant and willfully ignorant. My fear is that religion will keep people from understanding what is happening and it will be too late. Some religions dismiss all agency of humanity. I guess they assume that their God must not care about children and somehow that is OK in their value system.
I think it was already too late when there were just 1 billion humans. Just watch bacteria colony collapse. It is no different.
What will we do with all the dead people?
In 1977 I moved to Burlington, Vermont from a rural suburb that was “country” still. Now where we lived is considered close by the new commute standard. We moved so my dad could walk to work. I didn’t take it very well. We had acreage out in Heinsburg. Now we had 1/8 acre in the city. I used to wander out and about alone around the farmlands, now I had to stay on the block.
That year was my first green Christmas. Unfortunately the first of–well you know how things have gone for snow. I am bummed out about it in middle age. As a five year old I just thought it was because we moved to the city. Maybe it didn’t snow in the city. It still made me upset.
Cross Country skiing was an important family sport for us. Out at the country house we used to ski right out the back door, now in the city we had to drive to places that we could ski. This made it less accessible for me as a little kid, and less desirable for my parents too. By first grade, I was allowed to cross streets, and in the coming years started skiing down at a nearby park when there was enough snow.
Over the years the winters became less reliable, and I have been watching the sport of skiing try to keep up with an uncertain future. In Winter after Winter we hope for good snow days to coincide with available fun days. I skipped a bit of school during high school and even college to hit the mountain in prime yummm…
Still do. Last year I became mortally enlightened and now part of the focus of building my new career is trying to ensure that I have as much control over my time as possible so that if an opportunistic snowstorm happens to grace Southern Oregon I am ready to find that fun. It is selfish, but the sacrifice is just money and jealousy, so let the haters hate. I hate money. It all works out just fine. There have been many hours of skiing that I wouldn’t give up at $10,000 an hour. A few hours in those many that couldn’t be assessed. They have no value because what I felt was so far beyond a tangible price you might pay for pleasure.
Maybe it isn’t even pleasure at that level. It is almost spiritual.
When I moved to Oregon and really couldn’t afford to ski much as a college student, I moved my winter activities closer to the fluffy low-elevation forests around Eugene. I still followed the snow in my dreams, but knowing that I could only afford a couple of trips per year I spent a lot of time hiking in rain.
I love that too.
Then careers start and graduate school and suddenly it had been fifteen years since I had skied more than a few times a year. Along came my daughter.
Let the projection begin. Here is where my childhood anger at the weather anchor on channel 3 began to resurface.
I started mixing my emotional connection to snow with fear of a future without it.
As a parent, if you are awake, it is hard not to have concern in your heart for the future today’s kids will face. It is bleak. I try to be positive about it, but when a near majority of people can be fooled by the Music Man, I have little hope that even half of people can wrap their heads around climate change. The world is deep in a mass extinction and Billy Bubba Walmart Felcher is worshiping a racist guy who made an effective duck call, and another one who thinks he is a god. How simple to be tricked by fear.
We are fucked.
Anyhow, just before my daughter turned two we had her on skis. This season will be her 12th, and although she has now switched to snowboarding I am happy that she finds joy on the mountain. Imagine my joy last year when she hiked with me to the summit of Mt. Bachelor to drop into the crater from the cornice edge. I admire her fearless approach but I want her to have a healthy fear of the dangers of snow sports. People die every winter in Oregon. Tree wells are extra dangerous for snowboarders. I guess that could be one benefit of snow-less Winter. No more tree well deaths.
More tomorrow. It is late for a Sunday of time change. Peace.