In Winter, We Can Be Human
Reflecting on snow storms and being neighbors
Welcome to another edition of Willoughby Hills!
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Winter is a glorious time in New England. The snow blankets nearly everything, from lawns and rooftops to the branches of evergreen trees.
It’s also a time when we can truly be human.
Winter allows us time to slow down and breathe. There’s less places to rush to, and because the roads are icy, less of an urgency to get there. We make time to read, to think, to just be.
Schools close because of the weather. Companies that are taking strict attendance during the era of forced “return to office” policies are more lenient when the roads are slick. On days when snow is falling, we no longer have to move at capitalism’s breakneck pace. We can take our time.
Fire, that elemental gathering place of humans for thousands of years, that source of light, heat, and food, has largely been eliminated from our lives. It’s been contained in a sealed chamber behind a metal door in our furnaces, an otherworldly blue flame, rather than an erratic orange dance of embers.
But in winter, fire can once again be central in our lives. People gather around fireplaces and wood stoves. Even in houses like mine, with no fireplace, we burn candles much more in the winter than any other time.
Perhaps most importantly though, winter seems to engender a sense of organic community that is harder to come by elsewhere on the calendar.
20 years ago, I was living in a four-plex house on Revere Beach just north of Boston. We were hit with a blizzard in late January that dumped a ton of snow on the neighborhood. I spent some time outside, cleaning off cars and shoveling our walkways, and I when I returned inside, I heard a knock at my door.
It was my neighbor in the apartment next door, an elderly French-Canadian woman who lived alone with her cats. She saw me clearing the snow and decided to cook me a nice warm meal. We didn’t see each other often or even speak all that much, but there was something about us being stuck inside with nowhere else to go and nothing else to do that caused us to have a human connection.
Years later, when my wife and I moved to the western suburbs of Boston, clearing snow again became a way to bond with our neighbors, a couple maybe 15 years our senior with a teenage daughter. One winter day, they had just finished clearing their driveway and decided to come help me clear mine.
My wife was cooking chicken and dumplings inside and invited them to join us for dinner after work was done. We ate the warm food and traded life stories in our living room. We made a connection.
After that, I always tried to return the favor when I could. If I was first to finish, I would rush over to help our neighbors. If they finished first, they would come help us.
We were always cordial during the warmer months, but it was surface level. We would trade waves if we were mowing our lawns at the same time, but the roar of the engines was too loud for socializing. We would yell a quick hello from a distance as we scurried between our houses and cars, but we never really had time for a deeper conversation because of the pace of modern life.
One winter day a few years ago, I came to my neighbor’s driveway to help the husband clear the snow and casually asked how they were all doing. “Oh,” he said “you didn’t hear?”
His wife had been suffering with cancer recently. I had seen her from the window occasionally, struggling to climb down the porch stairs with help, a bandana covering her bald head. I had always meant to check in on her more, to see how she was doing, but life was moving fast.
My neighbor broke the news to me that his wife had died that past fall. Somehow we had missed the news for months.
He began to cry and I hugged him in his driveway, as the snow fell around us. And then we got back to work, clearing his yard of the recent snow.
We recently moved to a new house in Western Massachusetts and are learning about winter in this part of the state. Just yesterday, we were hit with a heavy snowfall of maybe four inches, followed by freezing rain all day long. Whatever snow hadn’t been shoveled became wet and heavy, and nearly everything was turning to ice.
I used our small, battery-operated snow blower to clear our driveway, but it wasn’t a match for the slushy mess. I tried to use a snow shovel, but it was slow going. My new neighbor across the street had been clearing his driveway with a large, gas snowblower, and once he finished, he came over and began to clear mine.
He didn’t ask for anything in return, didn’t expect anything, didn't even ask if he could help. He just got to work and did what needed to be done. In exchange for his kindness, I shared one of the last bottles of homemade maple syrup from our old house with him. He was appreciative.
We’ve never talked about our political beliefs, but I suspect he voted differently than me this past election. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if we were seated on a CNN panel together to discuss our views, we might find we were complete opposites.
Yet in the depth of winter, as we were all struggling to clean up snow, none of that mattered. We are simply neighbors helping each other. Just two humans, trying to make the other’s life a little better for a brief moment. Which is kind of the point of living life, isn’t it?
The temperatures will be in the 20s this week, before climbing above freezing this weekend. Soon enough, the snow will melt, the trees will bud out, and the world will come alive again.
People will celebrate the arrival of spring and curse the winter. But to me, there’s still some magic in these cold, dark days.
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I love this Heath! The emphasis on gathering around fire and embracing a more leisurely pace serves as a reminder of the simple joys that winter can bring. Thank you.
Such a nice thing to write about. I like the way you put it. I didn't see anyone when I was shoveling but it was still very cold out. I see more folks when I garden because I garden in the front of the house. But I love the connection with the neighbors.