Think spring, that’s what I’m picking up from friends stretching from Sweden to rural Utah. We all long for the warmth and comfort that the change of seasons brings to us. So when the weather changes just slightly in a positive way from winter doldrums, we all get excited just like the ground hog could if he/she understood what it meant to many to not see a shadow. It was 61 degrees here yesterday. Is it possible to feel happy in winter inside our warm houses filled with electronic devices to entertain and educate us? We don’t have to get up before dawn and go outside in the bitter cold to milk the cows and gather eggs so we can eat breakfast. What an easy life we have in comparison to many of our ancestors whose main focus was survival. We want more: fulfillment, excitement, self realization, etc. Maybe the good old days were better teachers of necessary virtues-hard work, self sacrifice, endurance, etc. What do you think especially those of you raising today’s children.
my ancestors arrived in America in a boat...but when i think about that crossing or the many people who crossed the plains i wonder why i sweat driving to the snowbelt and back on a winter storm warning day to take care of my godparents...with a car that runs, has heat, windshield wipers, and a cell phone just in case. how lightly i take the stuff that's so much a part of my day to day life. but all this is what i concentrated on as i drove today. now safe and at home, reading your blog, i remembered anew.
ReplyDeleteOkay... Now, I'm feeling like the spoiled child that I am. Your post, and susan's response to it brought me up short. I wouldn't drive into work yesterday because I didn't want to drive in the very light snowfall to get there. WIth an Outback, no less. Do I need to tell you how well they handle snow? Well, I probably do. You may have forgotten. AND... they have "seater heaters".
ReplyDeleteWayne and I were just talking about this very topic yesterday. We have a neighbor who runs a snowplow service that clears our driveway for us after every storm. He's cleared three inches.. and he's cleared 13 inches with MAJOR snowdrifts. In doing so, he's left banks along the drive way and in front of the woodpile that are about 7-8 feet high and 4 ft in depth. It's become all but impossible to get the fire wood out anymore. We were discussing what it would have been like 80 years ago when there were no snowplows to enable us to leave our homes and travel into town... when there was no other way to heat your home if the woodpile was completely buried. No natural gas heaters, no down comforters... no hot showers... even the little things like no warm, fresh from the dryer, sweat pants for cryin out loud. And here's a couple other things that I've become accustomed too... garage door openers, water I don't have to pump, refrigerators that don't require ice to keep them cold, sunglasses, hair color, toothpaste, mail that arrives in a couple of days. I have no desire to step back in time. I do wonder sometimes how future generations will look back on our lives today and marvel at what we did without. You know... believe it not... I think there are going to be many things we can't begin to imagine that will make their lives even easier than those that we live now. And I love being pampered with the time to think about "self actualization". Even that term would have been a mystery to our ancestors. I can just hear my grandma, "Self WHAT??? What is that and what on earth are ya gonna do with it?"
On our behalf, I have to say that I think it was easier to keep children holding to the iron rod in their day than in ours. I think there was less moral confusion for people of all ages.
As for Spring. I CAN'T WAIT. I love raspberry starts and buds on fruit trees and diggin in the warm dirt. I'm so excited to think I only have to wait about eight more Fast Sundays to start planting. Well... maybe that's a tad optomistic. It could take a while longer than that to get the 7-8 foot piles of this white stuff off our property. And we may have some serious flooding to worry about... Wayne's worried that a lot of fast run off could damage the bridge... so, we aren't living an existance completely void of all worries.
61 degrees... bruuutherrr, Lin. What do you care if we have snowplows and gas heaters and warm sweat pants?