Are you tired of sledding down Bunker Hill or the hill on the Common? Have you had it with strapping on your Nordic skis and gliding up and down the Esplanade? Has ice skating lost its charm? If you have school-age children, are you canceling vacation plans in late June because make-up days could last into mid-summer?
Have you given up going to the gym because the exercise you get from shoveling is surely enough?
If you’ve answered yes to these questions, you’re a Bostonian. Even if you love snow, you’re probably ready for something different.
Now I can’t make that happen.
Instead, I thought you might enjoy considering snow from an existential perspective rather than regarding it as only a frustration.
My first recommendation is a book. “Snow in America” was written by a George Washington University professor of American studies, Bernard Mergen. Mergen covers many fascinating aspects of the stuff, but my favorite parts deal with its meaning in our nation as time has gone by.
For example, at first snow was a novelty. The early settlers—Pilgrims and Puritans—in New England found it a challenge and were surprised at its frequency and its staying power. Present-day New Englanders can be just as challenged and surprised.
Those left back in England were impressed with the new Americans’ ability to meet snow’s challenges. At least some of the English came to believe that Americans, having had to face snow, were hardier and stronger than they were. Early immigrants must have realized they would be dealing with snow, and they must have come prepared.
As the years wore on snow became romanticized. Maidens were pictured dying in the snow. Nostalgic Currier and Ives winter prints became popular. Consider the Thanksgiving song, “Over the River and Through the Woods.” Remember “Snowbound,” the poem by John Greenleaf Whittier.
The Victorians studied snow like they studied everything. This was before physics and chemistry completely took over science, so some of us still like to look at science as they did. Observation was key. They recorded and counted the different snowflake patterns. They described snow, measured it, analyzed it and wrote about their findings. They were doing the same thing with trees, animals and everything else in the natural world.
Snow is now one of the United States’s most important resources. It is most critical in the arid southwest, which doesn’t get the rainfall that New England enjoys. Melting snow channeled into pipes and canals irrigates California’s farms in the Central Valley. About 90 percent of Los Angeles’s water supply comes from the snow in the Sierra Nevada or the Colorado River, which starts as snowpack in the Rockies. Phoenix also gets some of its water from the Colorado River. So much water is taken from the Colorado River by the cities and farms of the southwestern states that by the time it reaches the Sea of Cortez, aka the Gulf of California, it contains very little water.
Snow is also part of the literary and cinematic tradition of America. Since we’ve got so much of it, we might as well entertain ourselves with it, maybe by re-reading or reciting one of America’s most beloved poems, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” We could also watch classic movies involving snow. One suggestion is “Smilla’s Sense of Snow,” which might be better titled “Smilla’s Sense of Sweaters” since, as she solves the mystery, she shows off some of the best looking sweaters you’ll ever see. And we could read “Snow Falling on Cedars,” preferably in front of a fire.
Who knows how long the snow will last or whether we’ll break any records this year. And even if it gets tiresome we have to remember that unlike our suburban friends, we in downtown Boston have it pretty good during snowstorms. We have only a few feet to shovel. Our electricity never goes out. We don’t have to drive in the stuff, since the T carries us to wherever we want to go.
Things could be worse.