Sanuk D

I don't know what I'm doing here, I should be someplace else.

This continual snomageddon is beginning to have a body count.  Reports have been coming in about people who have died shoveling snow.  As we face the possibility of having to shovel the driveway for the third or fourth time, I’m starting to see their point.  Even the purchase of a new shovel this morning — along with a sled-disk for Tallulah — can’t generate enthusiasm for another snow adventure within me.

The Subdude slipped getting out of his car to check the mail or open a gate or some such mundane act.  The result is several fractured vertebrae.  That sounds extraordinarily painful to me.  The circumstances of this fall gave rise to the real possibility that he could be run over by his mother-in-law.  Fortunately, Cuz rescued him before word of his vulnerable state spread.  I wonder if there is anything in the Merton cannon which speaks to this particular situation.

There is likely plenty which speaks to what will have to follow.  I’m guessing there is not much that can really be done for fractured vertebrae.  Having to be still and know that the process is happening sounds fine in theory.  Practical application, however, may be more trying.  Practicing a discipline is easier when I can be actively engaged.  John Milton was right in saying that, despite the difficulty in staying put, “those also serve who stand and wait.”  At least we are almost to Lent, which is supposed to suck anyway.

The pines stood on the ridge like sentinels guarding the Valley of Love and Delight.  We sat in our meeting room, windows facing west, and watched the trees disappear into a cloudy white mass which could have been fog.  Within minutes, we found out it was snow.  Serendipitously, we had just finished our agenda while simultaneously reaching our appointed ending time.  My fellow retreatants broke for the door to start their journeys home.  I broke for my car to retrieve my running gear.

Across the street, on land once flooded to provide hydro power for an electric dynamo, tall pines and hemlocks overhung intertwined paths.  Last month’s purchase of trail shoes was proving prescient.  The first quarter mile being on paved road, there were no trees to give shelter, and my glasses a coating of precipitation.  Entering the woods, the world was reduced to the area immediately surrounding me.  Flake fell in gossamer sheets with a lulling hush.

As I ran, trees bent in to a cathedral arch above my head.  Brush swept my legs with icy fingers.  Somewhere a donkey brayed its objection to the snomaggedon.  The long-breached stone dam was yet bare, and the swift creek continued it’s rush.  Their defiance certainly can’t last under the assault of this “weather event.”  Prudence dictated that I too surrender to the reality of roads that were growing more slippery by the moment.  Leaving the forest’s confines, I was warm with the knowledge that this latest storm, not yet two hours old, had already yielded a memory worth holding on to.

Over the past couple of days, I have become a somewhat intense student of physics.  In addition, I have developed a minor interest in chemistry.  Here are some basic principles to which I have become re-introduced:

Friction (frik’-shun) – Friction is what occurs when one object comes into close contact with another object.  Small surfaces in the first object interlock with surfaces on the second, affecting the velocity of either or both objects.

Velocity (vel’-ah-sit-ee) – This is how physics guys say “speed” as in rate of travel, not the stuff biker gangs sell.

Inertia (Inn-ur’-shah) – This principle states that a body which is in motion tends to stay in motion.  Or, conversely, a body sitting a watching “Pineapple Express” will continue to watch “Pineapple Express” even though it has become clear that “Pineapple Express” is not a body’s kind of movie.

Matter – (mad’-urh) Stuff. Things. You know, like, an original (or perhaps Japanese) pressing of “You Can’t Buy A Thrill.”  Matter exists in three states: solid, gas, and liquid.  Every type of matter can be transformed from one state to the next.  Water, for instance, changes from liquid to solid at 32 degrees Fahrenheit.  Interestingly (and this is where the chemistry comes in) the addition of sodium chloride to water will lower the point at which it becomes solid to between 28 and 24 degrees Fahrenheit.  At 21 degrees, that stuff is solid as a rock, no matter what you do.

So when one controls the trajectory and velocity of an object operating in ambient temperatures around 21 degrees, one should be aware of the principles of physics and a little chemistry.  Objects with a mass of over, say, 1,500 pounds will tend to adhere strongly to the principle of inertia.  Under normal conditions, these objects will rely on friction to modulate their velocity.  The thing about water in a solid state, however, is that it usually offers very little surface disruption, therefore producing virtually no friction.  Given this reality, it is imperative on the operator to reduce the object’s velocity while increasing the distance between the object and other objects.

In other words, you, dude with the jeep that plays Wagner from the roof rack, you need to slow the hell down and back the frick off because they don’t need you to bus tables at Ryan’s so badly that you need to wreck into me in the process of getting there.  (That last part not so much my work as it was Heisenberg’s)

There is a point at which the written word breaks down and what you really need is a visual medium.  This may be one of those times, because the twelve or so inches of snow on the ground – and trees, and hills, and stream banks – are really not going to be done justice by my words.  Alas, one of the things this blogging experiment has taught me is that I am not intuitively a photographer or videographer.  By this I mean that I do not naturally think to grab a camera and head outside.  Since none of my favorite photographers have published snow pictures quite yet, you are stuck with words.

Having spurned the street for the stationary trainer yesterday, I was determined to get out for a real run today.  As the sun was emerging from a light cloud covering around 8:30 this morning, I decided the timing was not going to get any better.  It could not get that much worse, either, given the fact that we have nowhere to go and nothing to do.  This state of blissful inaction may be fun for another 12 to 18 hours, but after that I will have to start working on my novel.

In the meantime, I headed out for a run.  There was little evidence of any melting on the streets of the Suwaree.  It was clear pretty quickly that the place to be was in a rut of compacted snow created by the path of a vehicle’s travel.  This is also a good place for other vehicles to travel, so as I ventured on to the county road I had to move aside at times to allow the motorcars to get through.  Fortunately they were few and far between.

Reaching the blanket mill, I was greeted by the kind of winter scene often viewed in overly optimistic calendar pages for January and February.  The snow on the banks of two frozen ponds as well as the rushing Bee Tree creek laid heavy and thick.  As I approached the wooded trail into the Valley of Love and Delight, I thought the only thing worse than my disturbing the tranquil surface was my not having brought a camera along.  It turns out that snow has a way of imposing its own punishment.

Running in 3 inch deep snow along woodland trails in the quiet of winter is heavenly.  Running in 12 inch deep snow in a void where none can hear you scream is hellish.  Any energy coming from my legs was quickly dampened by the snow and then lost as my feet slid backwards.  Good, steep hills have nothing on this stuff.  In addition, my heart of 36 years, to which I have been faithful the whole time, objected to this added strain and immediately diverted oxygen from my brain to my legs.  As soon as I gained a path carved by a farm vehicle, the situation was reversed, sending so much oxygen to my brain that the resulting head rush threated to send me stumbling out of my track.

Righting myself, I eventually gained the campus roads which were the clearest in the land of the Suwaree.  It’s entirely possible that, having socked away six cans of PBR, a crew of teenagers had cleared these roads at 3am.  We have interesting ways of making fun in the Valley of Love and Delight.  Rather than returning to the farm, I ventured through the campus and back to the county road.  The abundance of vehicle tracks made the running easier, but the guys at the fire department thought I was nuts.  What is the point of running if you can’t make a man who would run into a burning building shake his head in wonderment?