One Mother of a Blizzard

Blizzard, 2011.

Already, we know this is one for the history books. Whether you counted inches of 24 or 28, it was a LOT of snow that rained down--frozen, fluffy, and blindingly white--on the first 2 days of February. And that doesn't even include the drifts. Before Blizzard 2011, I thought "snowed-in" was an expression reserved for the minor inconvenience of a driveway that needed a good shoveling. But when we woke up on Thursday morning to a back door impossible to open due to the 4 foot drift that held it shut, I learned the true definition of "snowed-in." Yes folks, that's a literal thing in these here parts of the hearty Midwest.

Preparing for Blizzard 2011 was a lot like preparing for a hurricane as a kid growing up in sunny south Florida: stock the pantry, line up the candles, find the flashlights, count the batteries, and hope for a day or two off from school. A blizzard, however, throws a few more curves to facing Mother Nature when she's got something to say, or roar, about.

First, there are no evacuation routes. You are where you are. The population of Chicago would no sooner be ordered to evacuate then they would hold an election without a controversy. All roads lead to home, sweet snow.




Second, as a kid, instead of less, you need more. More layers of clothes to venture out in the thick of it, more hot cocoa to warm your insides and lift your spirits, and definitely more physical strength to shovel, trudge, and move your wool-swaddled-self through the blowing blizzard white-out conditions.


Third, you don't run out into the streets and dance in your bathing suits during the "eye of the blizzard." Here's what the eye of the blizzard looked like on the morning of Wednesday, February 2nd:



In a word: white. And not just any white. This was the horizontal-blowing, down your jacket, in and around your long johns, chill-me-to-the-icy-bone, I think I'll go back in now, blowing-white.

Blizzard 2011 was the kind of experience that made you stop in your sleep--as the house swayed with the howl of the night winds, it begged the question...."OK, Mother (Nature), you have my attention, What???"



This is a question more pressing for our children's generation than any other before. What forces of Mother Nature and environmental woes--man-made and otherwise-- will they face, be challenged by, understand, and ultimately survive? What skills are they cultivating in today's lego play? Will they create the next oil spill prevention plan? Finally combat global warming with success? Will counting the glass Montessori beads in the palm of their small hands lead them to discover the next energy-independent culture? Will building their igloo forts translate into galaxy adobes someday?

Ultimately, I have one hope. That by venturing out into the zero-visibility, below-freezing conditions, and pressing their little bodies against the weight of the wind and snow to put one snowy boot in front of another snowy boot......that this experience deepens into their hearts in a way that 10, 20, or 30 years from now when they need that same strength to fight for and with Mother (nature)...they will call upon the strength of this blizzard that they each now hold a part of.

These are the questions that the raging night winds of Blizzard 2011 brought. Experiencing the sheer power and utter force of Mother in all her unbound volume was simply put: inspiring and generation-sized attention-getting.